When you think of the 20-year-old social network that is Facebook, its popularity among “young adults” is probably not what comes to mind. Naturally, Meta wants to change that and the company is once again telling the world it intends to reorient its platform in order to appeal to that demographic.
In an update from Tom Alison, who heads up the Facebook app for Meta, he says that the service is shifting to reflect an “increased focus on young adults” compared with other users. “Facebook is still for everyone, but in order to build for the next generation of social media consumers, we’ve made significant changes with young adults in mind,” he wrote.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Meta executives have been trying to win over “young adults” for years in an effort to better compete with TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg said almost three years ago that he wanted to make young adults the company’s “North Star.” And Alison and Zuckerberg have both been talking about the Facebook app’s pivot to a discovery-focused feed rather than one based on users’ connections.
That shift is now well underway. Alison said that the company’s AI advancements have already improved recommendations for Reels and feed, and that “advanced recommendations technology will power more products” over the next year. He added that private sharing among users is also on the rise, with more users sharing video (though no word on the once-rumored plan to bring messaging back into the main app).
Notably, Alison’s note makes no mention of the “metaverse,” which Zuckerberg also once saw as a central part of the company’s future. Instead, he says that “leaning into new product capabilities enabled by AI” is a significant goal, along with luring younger users. That’s also not surprising, given that Meta and Zuckerberg have recently tried to rebrand some of the company’s metaverse ambitions as AI advancements.
But it’s also not clear how successful Meta will be in its efforts to win over young adults. Though Alison says Facebook has seen “five quarters of healthy growth in young adult app usage in the US and Canada,” with 40 million young adult daily active users, that’s still a relatively small percentage of the 205 million daily US Facebook users the company reported in February, the last time it would break out user numbers for the app.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-the-future-of-facebook-is-young-adults-again-203500866.html?src=rss
The Tribeca Film Festival will debut five short films made by AI, as detailed by The Hollywood Reporter. The shorts will use OpenAI’s Sora model, which transforms text inputs into create video clips. This is the first time this type of technology will take center stage at the long-running film festival.
“Tribeca is rooted in the foundational belief that storytelling inspires change. Humans need stories to thrive and make sense of our wonderful and broken world,” said co-founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises Jane Rosenthal. Who better to chronicle our wonderful and broken world than some lines of code owned by a company that just dissolved its dedicated safety team to let CEO Sam Altman and other board members self-police everything?
The unnamed filmmakers were all given access to the Sora model, which isn’t yet available to the public, though they have to follow the terms of the agreements negotiated during the recent strikes as they pertain to AI. OpenAI’s COO, Brad Lightcap, says the feedback provided by these filmmakers will be used to “make Sora a better tool for all creatives.”
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
When we last covered Sora, it could only handle 60 seconds of video from a single prompt. If that’s still the case, these short films will make Quibi shows look like a Ken Burns documentary. The software also struggles with cause and effect and, well, that’s basically what a story is. However, all of these limitations come from the ancient days of February, and this tech tends to move quickly. Also, I assume there’s no rule against using prompts to create single scenes, which the filmmaker can string together to make a story.
We don’t have that long to find out if cold technology can accurately peer into our warm human hearts. The shorts will screen on June 15 and there’s a conversation with the various filmmakers immediately following the debut.
This follows a spate of agreements between OpenAI and various media companies. Vox Media, The Atlantic, News Corp, Dotdash Meredith and even Reddit have all struck deals with OpenAI to let the company train its models on their content. Meanwhile, Meta and Google are looking for similar partnerships with Hollywood film studios to train its models. It looks like we are going to get this “AI creates everything” future, whether we want it or not.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-tribeca-film-festival-will-debut-a-bunch-of-short-films-made-by-ai-181534064.html?src=rss
It's Friday, which means it's time for another curated roundup of the week's best tech deals. This week's selection is highlighted by a new low on Apple's entry-level iPad, which is down to $300 at Amazon with an on-page coupon. That's about $50 less than buying direct from Apple. Beyond that, a new PlayStation sale has cut $50 off the PlayStation 5 — and if you already subscribe to Sony's PlayStation Plus service, you can get a year of Netflix thrown in on top. We're also seeing discounts on year-long Peacock memberships, various Sonos speakers, the newest MacBook Air and Roku's Streaming Stick 4K, among other gadgets we recommend. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still buy today.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-10th-gen-apple-ipad-hits-a-low-of-300-plus-the-rest-of-the-weeks-best-tech-deals-170101188.html?src=rss
Former Activision studio Toys for Bob just announced a partnership with Xbox to release its first game after spinning off as an independent entity. The company, which developed recent entries in the Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot franchises, hasn’t released any concrete details about its upcoming release, except to say that it’s early in development and that the team has been working hard.
This is, of course, something of a homecoming for the developer. Activision is owned by Microsoft, making Toys for Bob its… former grandchild? In any event, it’s likely easy to get pitch meetings and the like with a company you’ve worked with in the past. Also, the developer has a fairly stellar pedigree, having created the Skylanders franchise and the well-reviewed Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, among others.
Toys for Bob spun out as an indie back in February after Microsoft instituted sweeping layoffs that impacted 86 employees, which was more than half of the staff. At the time, the company said the transition to an indie would allow it to return to “being a small and nimble studio.” This sentiment harkens back to its early days of the 1980s and 1990s, back when Toys for Bob was cranking out games like Star Control.
The developer also said back in February that Microsoft has “been extremely supportive of our new direction and we’re confident that we will continue to work closely together as part of our future.” It looks like it wasn’t lying about that last part.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/former-activision-studio-toys-for-bob-partners-with-xbox-to-publish-its-first-game-as-an-indie-170033303.html?src=rss
If you're on the hunt for an Apple Watch Ultra 2 deal, now is a good time to take the plunge — and not only because the wearable can be used as a dive watch. The device has dropped by $85 to $714 at Amazon. That's a discount of 11 percent, fact fans. The deal only applies to one certain variant, which has a titanium case and green/grey Trail Loop band, and only in a small/medium size (the larger option is $740). Still, that's a record low price for this particular option.
This is our pick for the best Apple Watch for adventurers. As noted, the rugged Apple Watch Ultra 2 can be used in the water, where it measures the temperature, dive duration and gauge up to 40 meters of depth. On terra firma, dual-frequency GPS support means that you should see more accurate pace calculations and route tracking than with other Apple wearables. When you're out in the wild, you can set waypoints in the Compass app to help you find your way back to your starting point, while an onboard siren could help others find you if you need help.
Meanwhile, you can set up the action button to carry out more or less any function you want when you push it. The battery should run for around 36 hours before it needs to be recharged and the low-power mode can help extend that timeframe. As with the Apple Watch Series 9, the S9 SiP (system in package) supports on-device Siri processing and the double tap function for hands-free use.
The Apple Vision Pro is heavy and would most certainly become an annoying anchor on your face if you tried to use it for an entire eight-hour workday. That’s because all of the tech is stuffed into the headset itself. A company called Sightful is addressing this issue with its Spacetop G1 system. It’s a laptop with no screen paired with AR glasses that runs custom OS and not Windows. All of the heavy stuff is inside of the laptop, so the glasses weigh, you know, about as much as a pair of glasses.
The company’s calling it “the laptop for the spatial computing era”, lifting a bit of Apple’s marketing language. It’s basically a pair of customized AR glasses from Xreal connected to something resembling the bottom section of a laptop, complete with a keyboard and trackpad. Sightful says this allows for a 100-inch virtual screen that floats over the real world. The device actually predates the Vision Pro, as it was released one year ago as an early-access product, though now its available for preorder to everyone.
As for the hardware, it’s not going to be breaking any speed records. The Spacetop G1 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon QCS8550 processor, which is typically found in mobile devices, along with 16GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The specs are fine, more or less, especially when considering the product’s focus on work and not play.
The glasses include a pair of 1920x1080 OLED displays with 90Hz refresh rates, a 50 degree field of view and 42 PPD (pixels per degree), with support for custom prescription lenses. They also include Xreal’s 6W open-ear speaker system. I’ve used Xreal glasses before and they are decent, but that promise of a 100-inch virtual screen is severely hampered by the abysmal field of view.
You can skip the virtual screen entirely. The device has two USB-C ports, which connect to peripherals like standalone monitors. This does call up a unique use-case scenario. You can work with a real monitor while at the office and then continue working with a full setup while on a plane or something. That would be kind of neat for the workaholics out there.
Sightful
The wireless connectivity options reinforce this idea, as the G1 supports WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, SIM cards, 5G and 4G. However, the battery will run out after just eight hours, so domestic flights may be the best bet here.
The system also comes with a proprietary OS to take advantage of the AR capabilities. It’s built on top of ChromiumOS and is designed for navigation via a selection of gestures. Testers have dinged the operating system by calling it "Android-like" and, due to being custom software, it doesn't offer support for every app out there. It does, however, work fine with Google's entire suite of productivity software. Finally, the G1 ships with a built-in 5MP camera for video calls.
The Spacetop G1 laptop may lack a physical display, but it’s priced as if it has the best OLED around. It costs $1,900. You can get a fancy new MacBook Air or a Copilot+ PC and a pair of AR glasses for around $1,400. Just something to think about.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-spacetop-g1-is-an-ar-laptop-with-no-screen-153752138.html?src=rss
Spain has blocked Meta from rolling out election-focused features on Facebook and Instagram in the country. Data protection agency AEPD used emergency powers stipulated in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to ban the Election Day Information and Voter Information Unit tools for up to three months as a precautionary measure.
Meta planned to deploy these tools ahead of the European Parliament election. The company said it designed them to “respect users' privacy and comply with the GDPR” and while it disagrees with the AEPD’s stance, Meta told TechCrunch it will comply with the order.
The agency took aim at how Meta planned to process data via the tools. It said there was no justification for the collection of age data (due to an inability to verify the ages users have on their profiles) and it criticized Meta’s intent to retain the data after the June election. It claimed this plan "reveals an additional purpose for the processing operation.”
Other data that Meta planned to process via the election tools included user interactions with those features as well as gender information. “The agency considers that the collection and conservation of data planned by the company would seriously put at risk the rights and freedoms of Instagram and Facebook users, who would see an increase in the volume of information that it collects about them, allowing the creation of more complex, detailed and exhaustive profiles, generating more intrusive treatments,” the AEPD said in a statement translated from Spanish. It also cited concerns about such data being made available to third parties for “non-explicit purposes.”
The AEPD asserts that Meta plans to use the tools to remind eligible Facebook and Instagram users in the EU to vote. The watchdog claims that Meta will identify users as eligible voters based on IP addresses and profile data about where they live. However, to vote in the election, the only requirement is to be an adult national of any EU member state.
According to the AEPD, Meta’s approach targets non-EU citizens who live in member countries while leaving out EU citizens who don’t reside in the bloc. It called the company’s treatment of user data "unnecessary, disproportionate and excessive,” according to Reuters.
The European Commission has raised concerns about Meta’s approach to elections as well. In April, the bloc opened an investigation into the company over its election policies.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spain-blocks-facebook-and-instagram-from-deploying-election-features-145013368.html?src=rss
FILE - The Meta logo is seen at the Vivatech show in Paris, France, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. The European Union opened fresh investigations Thursday, May 16, 2024 into Facebook and Instagram over suspicions that they're failing to protect children online, in violation of the bloc's strict digital regulations for social media platforms. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
The Watcher stood tall in my family room, bald and berobed, nestled amongst my kids' toys, sleeping cats and TV. I was being asked to help save the multiverse! So began Marvel and ILM Interactive's What If...? on the Apple Vision Pro. Like the Disney+ series and comics of the same name, this interactive experience recontextualizes Marvel's characters in a variety of intriguing ways — what if the Allies never won World War 2 and the Captain America experiment was a failure, for example.
What If...? has always been a fun concept, but can it actually be transformed into a worthwhile augmented reality showpiece? Well, yes and no — at least, based on the hour I spent with it on the Apple Vision Pro.
Before I dive into major criticisms, I'll say up front that What If...? is clearly an experiment, so rough edges are to be expected. I give Marvel and ILM Interactive credit for making it completely free for Vision Pro users and for taking a sizable swing at a platform without many users. The entire experience also looks wonderfully detailed, thanks to the combination of Marvel and ILM's immersive environments and character animation, as well as the sheer power of the Vision Pro's M2 processor. It's the closest you'll get to living inside of a comic.
Marvel has already dabbled in virtual reality with Iron Man for the PSVR and Quest, as well as Marvel Powers United VR, but What If...? is an attempt to accomplish something even more immersive: What if you could interact with superheroes right in your home? Mostly, though, I found myself asking "What if this experience was actually fun to play?"
Marvel
You're placed in the role of a mystical apprentice, wielding powers similar to Doctor Strange. Initially you can hold up a fist to manifest a shield, or look towards objects to use telekinesis. But you eventually gain the ability to shoot mystical blasts and trap enemies. It all sounds incredibly cool in theory, but in practice it felt worse than the first-gen VR games I played a decade ago.
Mostly, that's because What If...? relies on your hands for everything. The Vision Pro doesn't have a dedicated VR controller like the Oculus Quest or HTC Vive, which offer instant button inputs and could be tracked through IR sensors. Instead, you have to wait a fraction of a second for Apple's headset to recognize your hands and determine what you're trying to do. Consequently, What If...? feels more like you're sitting through a Marvel theme park ride, moving from one scenario to the next without much active participation. It's a poor way to make you feel like a multiverse-hopping adventurer.
At the very least, What If...? shows off what Marvel could do if it focused more on the Vision Pro and whatever Oculus has cooking next. Like a campy 3D film, the game wastes no time trying to blow you away with its core gimmick. It kicks off with a remixed Marvel intro montage in 2D, floating in front of you in augmented reality. As Michael Giacchino's iconic score crescendoes, you're suddenly surrounded by clips of the series drifting in from outside your field of view. It's a brief moment, but it's the sort of thing that wouldn't be as impactful in a traditional VR headset, where you're immersed in an alternate reality from the start.
Marvel
The experience truly begins with the aforementioned Watcher — one of Marvel's cosmic beings who observe its many universes — roping you in for an adventure. You know the drill: Find all of the Infinity Stones and stop whoever is trying to destroy all known creation. Kids' stuff. Along the way, you'll run into alternate-universe versions of familiar characters: Thor's sister Hela, who only wants to save her beloved giant wolf Fenris; a version of Steve Rogers who looks eerily like the Red Skull; and a more sympathetic Thanos.
What If...? moves between virtual environments that fully immerse you in the action and augmented reality scenarios, where The Watcher and a few companions putter around your room. You can do the same, sometimes, but within the VR segments, the game expects you to stay still. You'll also have to click through Vision Pro pop-ups about being mindful of your surroundings before every VR scene — a necessary evil for people unfamiliar with VR, but also something that kills immersion since it's not integrated into the game.
Marvel
Despite my issues with the gameplay, I ultimately had a decently entertaining hour with What If...? It was a quick Marvel fix in a time where I've grown tired of the onslaught of Disney+ MCU shows. I just can't help but wish it were more fun to play. I'm hoping this release helps Marvel and ILM Interactive get better at building AR and VR experiences. And for Apple, it's a clear sign that some sort of Vision Pro controller would be helpful down the line.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/marvels-what-if-for-apple-vision-pro-looks-incredible-but-plays-terribly-143028639.html?src=rss
The United States notoriously makes tax filing stressful and expensive thanks to greed, the tax lobby and the idea that basically nothing should be free (fun stuff!). However, there's a little glimmer of hope, as the IRS is making Direct File, its free digital tool announced in late 2023, permanent. According to the US Department of the Treasury, a Direct File pilot program saved 140,000 individuals an estimated $5.6 million in filing costs for the 2024 tax session.
Not only is the program here to stay (with the current government, at least), but its access is expanding. Taxpayers in 12 states could use Direct File this year, but the tool will be available in all 50 states and Washington DC starting with the 2025 filing season. The Treasury reports that Direct File users approved of the tool, with 90 percent of the 11,000 taxpayers surveyed rating the system "excellent" or "above average."
Right now, the free TurboTax alternative only works for taxpayers with simple filings like a W-2 or standard deduction. However, the Treasury plans to "expand the reach and tax scope" it offers in the coming years. Despite this expansion, it will be up to states whether they want to participate in the program.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-irs-is-making-its-free-turbo-tax-alternative-permanent-142055378.html?src=rss
Whether you have kids tracking in dirt on a daily basis or a few fur-shedding pets (or both), a robot vacuum can help keep your home clean. Vacuuming doesn't have to be a daily chore for which you alone are responsible — robot vacuum cleaners have gotten even better in recent years, to the point where they're better at navigating around your home, and some of them can even mop hard floors in addition to sucking up debris. Yes, they are on the expensive side of the smart home gadget spectrum, but there are more midrange and affordable options today than ever before. But if you're unclear where to start in your search for the best robot vacuum, we're here to help. We've tested dozens of these machines over the years to find our top picks mentioned below, and lay out some advice that will hopefully help you decide which robo-vac is right for you.
What to look for in a robot vacuum
Wi-Fi connectivity
As we explained in our budget guide, Wi-Fi connectivity is a key feature for most robot vacuums. Some of the affordable devices aren’t Wi-Fi connected, though, so it’s best to double check before you buy cheap. Wi-Fi lets a robot vacuum cleaner do things like communicate with a mobile app, which then allows you to control the device from your phone.
Vacuum suction
Suction power is another important factor to consider. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard power scale that all robo-vacs adhere to, so it’s difficult to compare among a bunch of devices. Some companies provide Pascal (Pa) levels and generally the higher the Pa, the stronger the vacuum cleaner will be. But other companies don’t rely on Pa and simply say their robots have X-times more suction than other robots.
Floor type
Ultimately, we recommend thinking first about the floors in your home: Do you have carpet throughout, or tile and hardwood floors, or a mix? Robots with stronger suction power will do a better job cleaning carpets as they can get into the nooks and crannies more easily. Some machines have “max” modes as well, which ups the suction power but also typically eats at battery life faster than the “normal” cleaning mode.
Mapping features and object detection
Past a certain price threshold, you’ll find advanced perks like home mapping features, improved object detection and automatic dustbin disposal. Home mapping is exactly what it sounds like: The vacuum uses sensors to map your home’s layout as it cleans, allowing you to send it to particular rooms or areas. Most robo-vacs have object detection, but some will be better than others at actually avoiding things like chair legs and children’s toys. Higher-end models like iRobot’s j7 series even go so far as to promise obstacle avoidance to steer clear of things like pet poop that can potentially ruin your machine.
Robot vacuums with mopping capabilities
We’re also now starting to see more robot vacuums with mopping capabilities. Machines with this feature have a water reservoir either built into the robot’s chassis or as a separate piece that you swap in for the dustbin when you want to mop your floors. It makes the robo-vac more useful if you have hard floors in your home that you like to keep squeaky clean, but it does require more work on your part. Filling and emptying the reservoir remains a human’s job.
Auto-empty station
Finally, for peak convenience, consider a robot vacuum that comes with a self-cleaning base. These are basically garbage bins attached to the machine’s docking station. At the end of each job, the robo-vac automatically empties its small dustbin into the large clean base – that means you won’t have to empty the dustbin yourself and you’ll only have to tend to the base once every few weeks. Just keep in mind that most self-emptying bins require proprietary garbage bags – another long-term expense you’ll have to factor in. Also, any vac-and-mop robot with a water tank will not dump its dirty water into the clean base, so you’ll still have to clean up that yourself.
Best robot vacuums 2024
Are robot vacuums worth it?
We tackled this question when we reviewed budget robot vacuums and the answer is yes, especially if vacuuming is one of your least favorite chores. Robots take the hard work out of cleaning your floors – just turn the thing on and watch it go. Any robot vacuum cleaner worth buying is semi-autonomous in that it will suck up dirt around your home until its battery is low and then make its way back to its charging dock. Unlike a regular vacuum, you should only have to interact with it to turn it on, empty its dustbin and untangle it if it were to get stuck somewhere.
That’s not to say robot vacuums are perfect. They’re almost always less powerful and less flexible than traditional vacuums. Since most robo-vacs are much smaller than traditional models, they often don’t have the same level of suction you’ll get in an upright machine. Plus, their dustbins are smaller, so they will need to be emptied more frequently. While Wi-Fi-connected robot vacuums give you the flexibility to start a cleaning job from anywhere using an app, targeting a small area of your home can be more complicated. Some robo-vacs have spot-cleaning features that focus the machine’s attention on a specific area, which almost – but not quite – mimics the spot-cleaning you’d be able to do yourself with a regular or cordless vacuum.
Robot vacuum maintenance tips
First and foremost, always empty your robot vacuum’s dustbin after every cleaning job. If you have a model with a self-emptying base, there’s less work for you to do yourself. If not, simply detach and empty the dustbin as soon as the robot is done cleaning. It’s also a good idea to take a dry cloth to the inside of the dustbin every once in a while to remove any small dust and dirt particles clinging to its insides.
In addition, you’ll want to regularly examine the machine’s brushes to see if any hair has wrapped around them, or if any large debris is preventing them from working properly. Some brushes are better than others at not succumbing to tangled hair, but it’s a good idea to check your robot’s brushes regardless — both their main brush and any smaller, corner brushes they have. These parts are often easy to pop off of the machine (because they do require replacements eventually) so we recommend removing each brush entirely, getting rid of any tangled hair or other debris attached to them and reinstalling them afterwards.
Robot vacuums also have filters that need replacing every couple of months. Check your machine’s user manual or the manufacturer’s website to see how long they recommend going in between filter replacements. Most of the time, these filters cannot be washed, so you will need to buy new ones either directly from the manufacturer or from other retailers like Amazon or Walmart.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-robot-vacuums-130010426.html?src=rss
The Google Pixel Watch 2 is on sale for $285 via Wellbots, which is its lowest price ever. That’s $65 off the usual price of $350, though you have to enter a promo code to get it. Just enter “ENGWATCH65” at checkout and you’ll be good to go. The sale covers all available colors, from that stunning matte black model to polished silver and beyond.
The Pixel Watch 2 is Google’s latest and greatest smartwatch and was originally released back in October. It’s a much better device than the original Pixel Watch, with longer battery life and some truly unique features. We loved the suite of sensors, including the updated heart rate sensor and the new skin-temperature sensor.
The watch also features something called a body-response measurement system, which refers to how your body reacts to stress. The watch is constantly looking for physical signs of stress and will prompt you to log your mood or take a walk when detected. This is done by tracking heart rate variability and sudden changes in sweat levels. We experienced mixed results with this system, but it does accurately predict stress levels a fair amount of the time.
The updated Snapdragon processor is powerful and Wear OS 4 is easy to get the hang of, particularly if you’re already in Google’s ecosystem. The display maxes out at 1,000 nits, which is much dimmer than the Apple Watch Series 9, but we never struggled to read anything on the screen.
There’s one major downside, but this is true of many modern smartwatches. The device wants to be worn while you sleep, to develop more accurate tracking metrics, but the battery doesn’t last 24 hours. So, you'll have to charge it for a bit in the middle of the day. Beyond that, this is a good all-around smartwatch for Android users, made even better by today’s discount.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-watch-2-is-65-off-and-cheaper-than-ever-140030240.html?src=rss
Twitch signed up cyberbullying experts, web researchers and community members back in 2020 to form the Safety Advisory Council. The review board was formed to help it draft new policies, develop products that improve safety and protect the interests of marginalized groups. Now, CNBC reports that the streaming website has terminated all the members of the council. Twitch reportedly called the nine members into a meeting on May 6 to let them know that their existing contracts would end on May 31 and that they would not be getting paid for the second half of 2024.
The Safety Advisory Council's members include Dr. Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyber Bullying Research Center, and Dr. T.L. Taylor, the co-founder and director of AnyKey, an organization that advocates for inclusion and diversity in video games and esports. There's also Emma Llansó, the director of the Free Expression Project for the Center for Democracy and Technology.
In an email sent to the members, Twitch reportedly told them that going forward, "the Safety Advisory Council will primarily be made up of individuals who serve as Twitch Ambassadors." The Amazon subsidiary didn't mention any names, but it describes its Ambassadors as people who "positively contribute to the Twitch community — from being role models for their community, to establishing new content genres, to having inspirational stories that empower those around them."
In a statement sent to The Verge, Twitch trust and safety communications manager Elizabeth Busby said that the new council members will "offer [the website] fresh, diverse perspectives" after working with the same core members for years. "We’re excited to work with our global Twitch Ambassadors, all of whom are active on Twitch, know our safety work first hand, and have a range of experiences to pull from," Busby added.
It's unclear if the Ambassadors taking the current council members' place will get paid or if they're expected to lend their help to the company for free. If it's the latter, then this development could be a cost-cutting measure: The outgoing members were paid between $10,000 and $20,000 a year, CNBC says. Back in January, Twitch also laid off 35 percent of its workforce to "cut costs" and to "build a more sustainable business." In the same month, it reduced how much streamers make from every Twitch Prime subscription they generate, as well.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-removes-every-member-of-its-safety-advisory-council-131501219.html?src=rss
Dyson helped pioneer the cordless vacuum space, and now it’s testing the waters of the robot vacuum arena. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav has been available in other parts of the world for a little while, but it recently came stateside to the tune of $1,200. The company claims a 360-degree vision system, complete with cameras and LED lights, along with suction power akin to that of its stick vacuums sets the 360 Vis Nav apart from competitors. But even if that’s true, Dyson is undeniably late to the party. Robot vacuums have gotten a lot better in the past three to five years, and there are dozens on the market — including some that offer much more in the way of features for a similarly exorbitant price. That said, did Dyson pull an Apple and shake up a product category despite its late entry to the stage? I spent some time with the 360 Vis Nav to find out.
Setup and design
Unboxing and setting up the 360 Vis Nav is similar to any other robot vacuum. In addition to the device, the box contains a charging cable and the vacuum’s base, a rectangular, purple unit with two black-and-white checkered spots at either corner. While it’s refreshing to see a gadget that doesn’t wear the typical black or gray uniform, the 360 Vis Nav and its dock stick out like sore thumbs among the other items and furniture in my home. There’s no semblance of “blending into the decor” with this robo-vac.
Once docked for the first time, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav’s small onboard display prompts you to choose a preferred language and get connected via the mobile app. The screen doubles as a button, too, so you can press fully down on it to select options and move forward in the setup process. As I learned while using the machine, the display also shows helpful maintenance tips and accompanying graphics when you need to clean the robot’s sensors. The My Dyson app (on iOS and Android) provides all of the same information and more, and will guide you to connect the machine to your home’s Wi-Fi network, update the firmware if necessary and finish the prerequisites before you get to cleaning. Aside from waiting a few minutes for my review unit to update its firmware, the entire process took me only about 15 minutes.
To get the lay of the land, let’s revisit the few things Dyson claims set the 360 Vis Nav apart from other robot vacuums. The D-shaped design isn’t one of them, but it certainly helps the machine’s side-edge actuator when cleaning room corners. Dyson claims the actuator only opens up when cleaning corners like this, and it uses suction (rather than sweepers like other robo-vacs do) to capture debris from these hard-to-reach places. Along with that, the machine has a 360-degree vision system that helps it map our your home and clean around furniture and other objects, plus a sensor that detects the amount of dust present so it can kick up the suction when necessary and create a heat map of the dirtiest parts of your home. Those are the main differentiators, along with the claim that the 360 Vis Nav essentially has a similar level of suction power as one of Dyson’s cordless stick vacuums.
Performance
So how did all of that come together in practice? Pretty well, as it turns out. For the initial go-around, I had the Dyson 360 Vis Nav clean the main floor of my home, rather than map it out first. I did this mainly because I like chaos, but also because I wanted to see how the machine would navigate around coffee tables, couches and other furniture, plus small things like cat toys left in its path. Dyson states very clearly in the setup process that you should remove all small obstacles out of the way of the 360 Vis Nav before it cleans — I picked up a couple of reusable bags languishing from our last grocery run and the smaller cat toys, but I left some charging cables snaking on the ground because, let’s be real, most people aren’t going to clean before sending the robot they bought to clean for them out to do its job.
I was quickly struck by how many times the Dyson 360 Vis Nav came to a complete stop, “looked” around and kept moving during the first cleaning. It did a decent job avoiding large pieces of furniture like chairs and couches because — when it did get close to pieces like that — it seemed to sense it a few inches before hitting it, so it could then stop and redirect itself. It was most confused by a coffee table with a supporting beam that runs on the floor in between two legs. The 360 Vis Nav has adjustable wheels that allow it to “climb” on top of things like thicker rugs when it’s cleaning, and I think it confused this roughly 0.5-inch supporting beam for a piece of decor. The robo-vac tried so hard to climb over it; it was borderline concerning, but I was rooting for it the whole way. It actually did manage to climb over the beam, get back down onto the floor and keep cleaning, so kudos to the little guy for never giving up.
After that thrilling show, I left the 360 Vis Nav to its own devices. It proceeded to clean the main floor of my home for almost an hour, audibly notching up the suction when it detected a messier area. Notably, it seemed better at avoiding furniture than other robot vacuum cleaners I’ved tried. Yes, it did knock into a few things, but the number of times that happened was slim to none. The first run I did was in Auto mode, the default cleaning setting and one of four you have to choose from, and while the machine was a tad loud, it’s nothing that will drive pets or young children from a room. It’s loudest when the machine automatically kicks the motor into high gear upon detecting a high-dust area, which it did a few times in the highest trafficked areas of my kitchen and on top of a few area rugs. Like any other robot vacuum worth its salt, the 360 Vis Nav automatically returned to its dock to recharge when the battery got low.
I deemed that first cleaning job a success, and the case was the same when I did the first mapping run. The 360 Vis Nav is much quieter when it’s puttering around your home not sucking up dirt, but rather just using its vision system to create a map of your home and all its furniture and obstacles. The map it created of my main floor was accurate, and the Dyson app makes it simple to add boundaries and create rooms that you can label. Once you do this, you can create no-go zones and other restrictions like cleaning without the brush bar. And like most other vacuums with smart mapping, you can tell the 360 Vis Nav to only clean certain rooms with each job if you please.
Like most other robot vacuums, the companion app experience focuses on home maps, schedules and basic on-off controls. Dyson lets you choose from Auto, Quick, Quiet and Boost cleaning modes before you start a job, and if you have rooms designated on your map, you can customize cleaning modes for each room every time. For example, I could tell the machine to clean my kitchen in Auto mode and then the den in Quiet mode. The app presents a heat map of your home after every job that highlights the areas with the most dust, which is interesting to look at but didn’t provide me with a ton of groundbreaking information. I was not surprised that the dirtiest spots on my main floor were almost always next to the front door and my deck door.
Ultimately, the two things that impressed me the most about the Dyson 360 Vis Nav were its suction power and its obstacle avoidance capabilities. I live in a one-cat household, but if you saw how much cat hair my cordless stick vacuum sucks up every time I use it, you’d think I live with a few more felines. There’s always more fur in the bin after I clean the upper floor of my home, since it’s carpeted. After leaving the 360 Vis Nav on my upper floor to clean for almost an hour, I was surprised to see that the contents of its bin looked nearly identical to that of my cordless stick vac after cleaning up there. Even the best robot vacuum cleaners I’ve used in the past never sucked up this much pet fur in one go-around on carpeted floors — it’s impressive.
As for obstacle avoidance, I didn’t expect much from the 360 Vis Nav in this department because the instructions tell you, more than once, to clear your floors of any obstructions before cleaning. Most of the time, I had at least a few pairs of shoes, a couple of charging cables and other small objects on the floor while the machine was cleaning, but I never once got an alert that it was stuck. Some robot vacuums I’ve tested have sent me close to a half dozen alerts during a cleaning job, and I’d have to remove an object they were choking on before they could start up again. That never happened with Dyson’s machine.
The competition
With the Dyson 360 Vis Nav coming in at an eye-watering $1,200, the competition squarely within that price range is pretty slim. The $1,400 iRobot Roomba Combo j9+ is arguably its most direct competitor and it offers quite a bit more for that extra $200. (We’ve seen the Combo j9+ drop to as low as $1,000 in the past, so you might be able to pick it up for even less than Dyon’s machine.) As a “combo” device, the j9+ vacuums and mops without the help of a human (mostly) and it’s smart enough to know when it needs to switch from sucking up dirt to mopping floors using its built-in scrubbing pad and water reservoir. It also comes with a self-emptying base that can hold up to 60 days worth of dry debris and refill the water reservoir with clean supply. While auto-mopping is more of a nice-to-have than a requirement on a robot vacuum, it’s painful that Dyon’s $1,000+ machine doesn’t come with a clean base — a piece of hardware included in some models half of its price.
Wrap-up
When you understand the lay of the robot-vacuum landscape, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav seems almost quaint — and a bit confusing. Robot vacuums aren’t new, they’ve been around for a long time — long enough where you can get a pretty decent one for less than $300. For Dyson’s machine, spending $1,200 gets you a damn good robot vacuum with possibly the best suction power I’ve experienced on one, impressive obstacle avoidance, good home mapping and a clean app experience. But none of those features are unique to the 360 Vis Nav. Its suction power and obstacle avoidance may be superior, but is that enough to justify the cost? If you’re already willing to spend $1,000 or more on a robot vacuum, you have other options that will give you similar features and more, including mopping and self-emptying capabilities. That said, there are two groups of people who I’d recommend the 360 Vis Nav to: those who are willing to give up advanced features in exchange for the most suction power possible (and have cash to burn), and Dyson diehards.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dyson-360-vis-nav-review-superior-suction-at-a-steep-price-130010791.html?src=rss
A misdelivered order, theft and a hasty return: those are the three acts comprising Playdate's recent real-life adventure. According to the handheld gaming system's account on X (formerly Twitter), FedEx dropped off $400,000 worth of Playdates to a construction site near their actual warehouse destination. Then, poof, it was all gone — but that wasn't the last of it. Suddenly, the shipment reappeared, not at the warehouse door but in front of a random restaurant. The return was seemingly quick, with some packages toppled over and entering the street.
We don't know who was behind the theft and eventual return, though no one seems too bothered, as a follow-up post says the necessary detective work was "enjoyed." Plus, the account (jokingly?) pitched selling these devices as a limited edition run called Playdate Hot. Playdate promised further details in the future — possibly on the Playdate Podcast. One user on X asked about getting their hands on any devices they don't need, to which Playdate responded, "Check the streets of North Las Vegas."
The Playdate came out in April 2022 as a cute, monochromatic alternative to high-level gaming systems that features a crank on its side. Panic, which owns Playdate, sold about 70,000 units in the first two years and offers more than 100 titles in its built-in library. These black-and-white games are relatively simple but include everything from first-person shooters to puzzles.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-400000-delivery-of-playdates-were-briefly-stolen-124519551.html?src=rss
The Google Pixel Buds Pro are one of our favorite wireless earbuds on the market, but they don't come cheap. However, they're currently down to $130 from $200 — the best deal we've seen all year. You can access the discount on Wellbots with the checkout code ENGPIX70.
The Google Pixel Buds Pro came out in the summer of 2022, but they're still one of the best earbuds on the market. We gave them an 87 in our review thanks to features like their excellent active noise cancellation (ANC) and a powerful, punchy bass. You can use ANC and transparency mode or turn both off completely. That bass is part of an overall impressive sound quality that extends across musical genres. Plus, they last about 11 hours without ANC or seven hours with it and their case offers wireless charging.
The earbuds are also a great option if you have an Android phone. They allow you to switch easily between paired devices, use Google Assistant without touching any buttons and access a "conversation detection" mode that turns off ANC and your music if you start talking. All of these functions work natively on Google's Pixel phones but are available on other Android devices with the Pixel Buds app.
Tesla is no stranger to safety issue recalls, and now there's another to add to its list. The company is recalling 125,227 vehicles due to a problem with the seat belt warning system, Reuters reports. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the driver could be unbuckled, and the warning light and chime still might not activate. This malfunction violates federal safety requirements and could increase a person's injury risk.
The affected models span the last decade, comprising some of the 2012-2024 Model S, 2015-2024 Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles. To fix the issue, Tesla will change the sensor from depending on seat weight to whether the buckle is plugged in and the car is turned on. An over-the-air update should begin in June.
Tesla notably recalled over two million vehicles in December following Autopilot safety issues and a two-year NHTSA investigation. More recalls followed earlier this year: In January, Tesla recalled 200,000 Model S, X and Y vehicles from 2023 due to a software issue that prevented the backup camera from working when the car is in reverse (so the exact time it's needed). The included vehicles comprised over 10 percent of the company's 2023 output. Tesla also recalled 3,878 Cybertrucks in April after discovering that an accelerator pad could get loose.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-recalls-over-125000-vehicles-to-fix-seat-belt-issues-121546942.html?src=rss
Buying a good Father’s Day gift can be tough if you’re on a budget, especially if your dad is already on the tech-savvy side. Sometimes they may claim they don’t want anything, other times they might buy the thing you’re looking to gift without telling anyone. If you need help jogging your brain, we’ve rounded up a few of the better gadgets we’ve tested that cost less than $50. From mechanical keyboards and security cameras to luggage trackers and power banks, each has the potential to make your dad’s day-to-day life a little more convenient.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-gifts-for-dad-under-50-113033738.html?src=rss
Apple is working on a version of its Siri voice assistant that will use advanced AI powered by large language models (LLMs), Bloomberg has reported. The technology will allow users to perform specific app functions with their voices, such as opening documents, sending emails and more.
The new version of Siri will only work on Apple's own apps to start with. It won't arrive with iOS 18 but may be released subsequently as an update early next year, the report states.
The assistant will be able to analyze your phone's activity and automatically enable Siri-controlled features. It'll support "hundreds" of commands but will only be able to process one at a time at first, according to the article. Later, Siri will support multiple tasks in a single request.
At first, supported commands would include sending or deleting emails, opening a specific site in Apple News, emailing a web link or asking for an article summary. Once multiple commands are enabled, it'll be able to summarize a recorded meeting then text it to a colleague, all in one request. "Or, an iPhone could theoretically be asked to crop a picture and then email it to a friend," Bloomberg's Mark Gurman wrote.
It's unclear which LLM Apple will use to power this version of Siri, but the company reportedly just reached a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iOS 18. At the same time, Apple may also be negotiating with Google to integrate Gemini AI into search on iPhones. Apple will reportedly handle many AI requests on-device, while using the cloud for more complex commands.
Apple is expected to focus on AI for its WWDC 2024 conference that runs from June 10 to June 14. At that point, it may reveal that it reached a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iOS 18. We may also see AI-powered features like voice memo transcriptions and summaries, website recaps, automated message replies and more.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-reportedly-overhauling-siri-with-ai-for-improved-voice-controls-120033411.html?src=rss
This week, Devindra and Engadget's Nathan Ingraham discuss the new Max documentary "MoviePass, MovieCrash" and reminisce about the early days of that wild startup. It was a huge mess in the end, but we wouldn't have subscription plans in theaters without it. We also chat with MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes, as well as the documentary's director, Muta'Ali, about the film.
In other news, Nate explains why Google is adding a slew of AI features to Chromebook Plus notebooks, and we dive into the Fitbit Ace with LTE, which has the potential to be a very useful smartwatch tracker for kids.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Topics
Moviepass, MovieCrash interview with CEO Stacy Spikes and director Muta'Ali – 1:33
Chromebook Plus laptops are getting AI features soon – 41:43
WWDC is scheduled for June 10 – 56:26
Cherlynn’s Fitbit Ace LTE hands-on : a fitness tracker for kids! – 59:55
Sony pulls “fabricated” interview with Last of Us creator Neil Druckman – 1:03:44
Vox Media and The Atlantic magazine made content deals with OpenAI – 1:08:06
OpenAI’s new safety team includes members of the company’s board and Sam Altman himself – 1:13:30
Listener Mailbag: Windows screen readers on ARM and the iPad as a full-fledged work machine – 1:14:41
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Nathan Ingraham Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Transcript
Devindra: What's up, Internet, and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar. Joining me today is Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham. Hey, Nate.
Nathan: Hey, Devindra. Good morning, and good morning to our listeners.
Devindra: Good morning. Happy holiday week, too. It's a bit of a short week here. Not as much news as we typically get, but this is a good time to talk about this documentary that just came out on Max's MoviePass Movie Crash.
It's about that subscription movie theater startup, which I think everybody, a lot of people were into way back when, and I have a lot of fond memories about it too. We'll talk about that thing and also the story of MoviePass. And we also have an interview with the co founder and current CEO of MoviePass, Stacy Spikes and the director of the documentary, Muta'Ali.
So stay tuned for that. We'll also be talking about some Chromebook Plus news getting getting AI features. And Nate, I feel like you're the person to talk to about that because you love Chromebooks.
Nathan: I do. I still do. And I've been checking them out for a few days here. I was away. But got home to new hardware and I've been playing around with it and I have a few initial thoughts.
Devindra: Okay, we'll do that I feel like nate if you're gonna get any if you're gonna get a tattoo of any kind You would probably get a chrome symbol tattoo for chromebook chrome I would do a chrome
Nathan: next to an apple
Devindra: just to mess with people just to mess with people That would be the way to do it as always folks If you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us in itunes Or your podcaster of choice, leave us a review on iTunes.
Drop us an email at [email protected]. We've got some great reader emails this week too. So we'll talk about that towards the end of the episode. Let's talk about MoviePass Movie Crash. And this is a movie that's out now on Max, the one to watch for HBO. And I think it's pretty good. It's a good exploration of what the hell happened at MoviePass.
And. I'll tell you all I have I have a lot of feelings about Movie Pass because I'm also a movie critic. I've done a movie podcast since 2008. Movie Pass was also something I started writing about before they were even like a major thing. So in 2012, I met with Stacy Spikes, the one of the founders, and, we had a good discussion about movies and about his own background, because he was also a movie executive and a music producer too, or a music executive. So he's somebody from the movie industry who loves movies and wanted to like. Change the way the whole like movie paradigm work, especially how theaters work.
I feel like we may take it for granted today, folks, but if you look around, like every major theater chain has a subscription plan, for 20 or 30 bucks a month, you get all you can eat movies. Maybe some wiggle room around pricing and stuff there. Before MoviePass, none of that existed. And that the whole idea of paying a flat fee for all you can eat movies was just like something the entire industry was totally against.
When MoviePass launched it was like a 50 plan. You had to bring a sheet of paper to the box office and they tell like type something in to get you the ticket. It wasn't great. It took a while for things to get going. Then they did this thing where. They started, they had the card, they got the debit card going, and they got a patent for the ability to automatically fund the debit card based on your location.
And nobody had ever done that before. So like that movie pass app, 2013, 2014, that was the point where they were like, okay, you have to check into the movie theater and then pick a time. And then you get your ticket. That whole technique had never existed before. So that was like the thing that kind of got them to 500, 000 users.
The growth was not great for a while because it was still 40 to 50 in many places. Then Stacy spikes got pushed out. He was replaced by a new CEO named Mitch Lowe. He's a guy coming out of red box and Netflix. And then things got crazy because Mitch Lowe talked about, do you remember this Nate?
Like Mitch Lowe had the like 100 plan and the 50 plan. Yeah. Like as soon as he came on, it went nowhere. And then why do we know why I don't think anybody wants to pay a hundred bucks a month. I wasn't, I love movies. I love going to the theater. I would not pay a hundred bucks a month for this. Then they came up with the 10 a month, all you can eat movie plan, right?
That's
Nathan: when I remember starting to really hear about it. That's when the buzz broke out. Cause that was so cheap.
Devindra: That was the buzz. And that was pretty much, that was all Mitch Lowe and eventually his like co CEO Ted Farnsworth, who came from HMNY, which was this like. I guess it was like a private equity firm.
It was a whole thing. Things got really confusing, but explosive growth. That's exactly what startups wanted to see in the mid 2010s. Doesn't matter if your business model sustainable. It doesn't matter if they're paying full prices for these tickets, but they're losing money. They're burning, literally setting money on fire to get these users.
And I think a lot of people within the company raised concerns like, Hey, this is not sustainable. And Mitch Lowe and Ted's farm were were basically. Pedal to the metal. Let's just go all the way. See how far this goes. Is it fair
Nathan: to say that Stacy's plan was more sustainable and that's probably why it didn't get the big growth, but it could have just continued on.
At that point and possibly it could have found a smaller audience,
Devindra: as, so as I hear it and Hey, we have an interview with Stacey and the director of this documentary in this episode. But as I heard it, and as he explains it, like that was what he was saying. It was like, Oh, this 10 thing was going to be.
A temporary measure. Let's get those users. Let's get some buzz and then switch over to 20 or 30 a month and be more sustainable so we can actually afford to keep this business afloat and Mitchell and Ted's Farnsworth just never really did that. They kept getting more money and burning it all.
And watching this documentary just brought up a lot of feelings for me, namely, because I remember being really pissed off about this whole story, because first of all, Stacey Spikes is a rare black entrepreneur in the startup world, and you never really see that. So I was like, it's cool that MoviePass is a thing coming from black founders and was like finding some success.
He was pushed out for Mitch Lowe. All of a sudden the like demographic of the executive board looks very different. They get, they immediately get the funding that Stacey Spikes and his original founder couldn't get. They were struggling to even get documentary gets into this, I hope. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the whole thing.
And this is it's an infuriating documentary because it's just these guys made a really cool idea, like a really cool business that reshaped the theatrical model completely. They couldn't actually get the money for it because nobody was funding them. Which just really sucks.
Nathan: Yeah, I guess there's a lot of people only remember them from that sort of boom phase when it was 10 bucks a month and even then, people were asking like, how is this possibly going to be sustainable?
Cause I didn't know about that prior history so much. And so that makes me really intrigued to see the whole thing play out.
Devindra: It's the whole thing. It's a good documentary. I also wrote a piece like back then, Nate, adding gadget called movie past died so cinemas can live. And I feel like that still resonates today, to be honest.
This documentary is worth a watch. I think it's great where things are right now. C. Spikes ended up buying the like remnants of the company at auction for a low price and he's resurrecting it now. I think at a more sustainable price, it's 30 to 40 a month. It's run it using credits instead of just giving you the full money for a ticket.
So I've not used the new movie pass yet. We'll see where that goes. But hey, theatrical subscription plans. Like I think those are great deals. If you go to the movie theater two or three times a month. Yes, absolutely. You have one. Yeah. I use the my local theaters are regal. So I use it regal and limited.
I think they call it. But in New York, I was all about the AMCA list. Like that was the thing. If you go to a movie theater two or three times a month, these subscriptions are totally worth it. I have to go. Almost every, almost once a week, almost multiple times a week for things I need to review.
And I think this documentary is worth a watch. So here, check out our interview. Stacy Spikes and Muta'Ali. Thank you so much for joining us on the Engadget podcast. Thanks Devinder. I'm glad to be here. Happy to chat with you guys and Stacey, let me lay out some history for our listeners here. I remember sitting down with you in my office when I was working at VentureBeat, it was like 2012 and you were laying out the pitch for MoviePass for me.
I was a movie podcaster at the time, still am, but it was blowing my mind to see the convergence of my interests of the movie side and the tech side of things. So we have been talking a while. I've seen the ups and downs of MoviePass, I'm just wondering at this point, you have resurrected MoviePass, not to spoil the ending of this movie, but if people have seen the news, you've resurrected MoviePass, you're doing something new right now, how is the new iteration of MoviePass going?
Stacy Spikes: It's going great and yeah we have been talking and on this journey together for a while, but the The difference when we brought it back was we added some features that we knew we needed back in 2016 before the takeover, but hadn't had the opportunity to deploy. So one of the things was adding a credit system so that Where there's savings for the company, we're able to display that savings for the consumer and create alignment where the previous iteration really didn't share that you went in the app and you didn't know, Hey, is movie pass paying full price for this ticket or wholesale for that ticket?
And so now the credit system creates that alignment. And that was a really big differentiator from B1 to B2.
Devindra: Gotcha. Yeah, I've, I was noticed that I have not tested out the new version of MoviePass yet, and I also have a lot of questions about how the theater chains ended up responding to you guys too.
But let's talk about this documentary in particular MoviePass, MovieCrash. Devindra, I'm wondering what brought you to this project and this story?
Muta'Ali: It was the writing of Jason Guerrasio at Business Insider producer Scott Beltry gave me a call and asked me to read the article about MoviePass and I had heard about MoviePass but I was never a member.
And once I read his article and learned a little bit about Stacey and Aimee and the journey of MoviePass, I said, wow I'm surprised I didn't know this. I wish that I did. And I think a whole lot of other people would want to know more about this. And so that kind of got me my gears going and after a while, I, I took in a lot of information about when we did a lot of research and joined the team over at unrealistic ideas Mark Warburg's studio.
And together we developed a way to tell this story. And shortly within that period after a short period of time. I got to meet Stacey over Zoom and really was, obviously impressed by him, impressed by his journey and got a little bit more of an inside look at what had transpired and I was like wow, okay this story is definitely something that I think needs to be told.
Devindra: Yeah. Devindra, I have to wonder, where were you when MoviePass was at its rise? I'm wondering how you missed it. Were you, are you in New York? Everybody was talking about MoviePass. It was a wild time. But also, it felt wilder to me as somebody who was covering the beginning, too, and being like, this is a good idea.
It's struggling. It needs some legs. But it was wild to see it really take off. So let's talk about Kind of the history of MoviePass and how things started and your background, Stacey, too. I was fascinated to hear that you were a studio executive. Who came into this at Miramax, right?
And you had gained a reputation within Hollywood. You wanted to do something that's around movie subscriptions. And I think when we first talked, this was before the debit card idea. This was the idea that you would check in online and bring, I think it was like you had to bring a printout right to the box office to have them to do the Yeah, basically create a ticket for you.
We talked in 2012 about that idea. It was cool, but it was like 50 at the time. It was a little clunky, but then you guys did. The debit card idea, which I think was the killer thing that kind of helped make it all easier for consumers. But you also had some trouble with the movie theater chains I remember the back and forth like you guys would launch and then the theater chains would be like no We don't want this at all.
Can you talk about the early turmoil of even making movie past the thing?
Stacy Spikes: Yeah, so Really good History overview there. But so there was a few iterations. So the very first version we went through movie tickets. com and movie tickets was largely owned by AMC. And when we launched AMC got upset and turned us off.
Like we literally were born. On Thursday and got turned off by them on Friday. The next day we had done a premiere and a press event in San Francisco, and this was on a Thursday and we're going to let people in on beta. And then the next morning AMC released an announcement that slow, slow down.
You're I was a little confused by that, by
Devindra: the way, because like they had to approve this in the beginning. They had to know this was happening. I don't understand how it was like an overnight thing where they're like, Oh crap, what did we approve here?
Stacy Spikes: Yeah, because we couldn't, a lot of people said how did you do this without their approval?
You can't get API access to someone's code without their approval. So there was I think the left hand and the right hand had not communicated very well. And so I think the high, the lower end of the spectrum knew about it and thought, Hey, someone's helping to drive traffic to theaters. But I think when senior management got involved and they saw Netflix for movies, theaters splashed across headlines it was like, wait, how did we not know about this?
I think they just thought we were just going to buy some tickets through their API. And so we had to do some things in the interim, which were absurd. Like you would print out a single use credit card, which basically was, you were printing out a one time use number, going to the box office, having them punch that in manually.
On a Friday night when there's a line of people and theaters are like, we really don't like this idea. And then that's where the card got born. We knew we needed to create something that was an an OTT platform that would work seamless. And we knew credit cards or debit cards was the way in. Cause every theater had a kiosk or they
Devindra: couldn't really control that either.
Like you, Everybody needs to be able to use their debit cards at these things. Yeah.
Stacy Spikes: So that, that was really the the inflection point that it was unstoppable because every theater, a customer, so we're doing a deal with the customer, they get issued a card and they can go buy a ticket at whatever theater they want.
So really the theater would be rejecting their own customer, whether they were paying with their debit card. Their regular MasterCard or say a movie past MasterCard.
Devindra: And the theater is getting a full price ticket purchase too. So it's not like you were getting discounted tickets. I want to set up the context here too, because I think in 2024, the landscape of cinemas looks really different.
We are post pandemic. Cinemas are hurting, but there's also kind of people have a love for it now of like almost losing it. So people want to support the cinemas. Every major theater chain has their own subscription program. And I feel like that never, that wouldn't have happened if MoviePass hadn't come out and had shown them that there was a demand for this.
And also you guys had done a study that showed if people had like an all you can eat subscription, it actually drives up revenue for the theaters because people go and buy more concessions and it just ends up working out that way. Stacey, let's talk about the card in particular, and this is where we get a little nerdy, because I remember when you first presented the idea to me, the idea was, you have this debit card, the app knows your location, it knows you're at the theater, you say you're going to go see a movie, MoviePass puts money on the card at that instant.
And then you pay for your ticket and that's something that's like instant transactional stuff on to a debit card had never been done before you guys got a patent for it that seemed pretty fascinating at the time.
Stacy Spikes: Yeah, that's exactly right. So what we did was we needed to geolocate.
every single theater in North America, Alaska and Hawaii. And then we had to be able, so there was all of these challenges, like if the theater was inside of a mall, right? But the geolocation was to be able to say I am at this theater and in the app, you're corresponding. Your selection choice is that theater.
So that's one verification. The second verification is that there is an MCC code, which is a merchant category code that you're at a theater, not a gas station or a bowling alley or a pizza place. So that was the second thing you needed. And then. The third was that your account was in good standing and those three things cross referencing each other authorized the ability to get your ticket.
So for the first time no one had done real time geolocation based authentication to unlock currency. And so what we were doing was we really were a fintech company. Underneath we, cause you can use it for any industry. But companies like four square and other were using check ins, location check ins.
And so that was the beginning of what we started to use. And there was layers on top of it. The first version of the card, people could share the same card. So college students signed up and
Speaker: yeah,
Stacy Spikes: they would all log into the app with the same login. So we had to. We had to make it that the phone, not your account, went to the theater, your phone went to the theater, and then we saw fraud drop because people will give you their card, but they're not going to give you their phone.
Devindra: Yeah very smart idea. So at that point you had the fully formed idea of what MoviePass could be, and I think I was in New York at the time, it seemed hey, among the movie people I knew I knew pretty well, Pretty much a lot of the film critics, the young folks film Twitter, as they call it we were all about movie pass at the time, but growth for you guys as a company had stagnated and it seemed like your investors wanted to go a step further.
So that's where Mitchell appeared. Mitchell came in coming from red box. Supposedly with a Netflix background to you. I do like how you guys bring that up in the documentary. But Mitchell is this guy who basically created the idea that set movie pass on fire, the idea of a 10 subscription, unlimited movies, all you can eat.
And I remember the exact moment Stacey, when that news hit and I was like, Oh, that's cool. That's going to get hype, but that's clearly unsustainable.
Stacy Spikes: There's a step in between there. So when Mitch first came on, Mitch actually went in the other direction. He went up to almost a hundred dollar plan.
So the unlimited was a hundred dollars and then he put in. Some capped plans. And so he went totally in the other direction, right? I think we had launched at 50 and brought it down to 30. So he went totally in the other direction. Then when HMNY came in, Ted and that group said, We want to be the same price as Netflix.
It's all they cared about. And it was 95. And then boom, that was, and like you said, it was never meant to be permanent. It was meant to be a promotional announcement that. We did this deal in this merger and this is like our coming out and it's a temporary price point. And then what was going to happen was that was your first month.
And then you were going to normalize, but they said, wow, we did a hundred thousand people in 48 hours. Let's just keep it there. And that's when I was like, wait, but That's not sustainable. And that was literally, that was the moment the ship pointed towards the edge of the cliff. It seems like
Devindra: either it's like, they noticed it was now a runaway train thanks to this price and this growth.
But rather than be like let's stop before we fall off a cliff. They were like, let's keep going. This is the mentality, by the way, like I have been covering startups since 2010. Like this was the era of growth at all costs, right? User growth at all costs. Startups were getting money and this is a story of Uber and Lyft and pretty much all the major ones now to Facebook, the same thing they weren't actually making money, right?
They weren't making much revenue, but they were getting a ton of funding in to establish this user base. And for a lot of startups, that was what they wanted more than Actual, a functional business. And I think that's what they ended up turning into. Mutually. I have to ask you how did you guys get Mitch low to even cooperate with this documentary?
Because he does not come off looking good. And I think a lot of people can paint him as like a major villain in this story, actually.
Muta'Ali: Yeah. I don't think he comes off. The way he might want to have come off. At the time, Mitch was pitching a book, I forget the name of it, but he was in his book, I think.
Oh, of course he
Speaker: is.
Muta'Ali: Yeah, he was I think how he disrupted Hollywood or something like that. It was the whole vibe of the book. The
Devindra: Redbox plan, like his, the idea was like a dollar a disc, I believe that was his idea. The stuff from him. Yeah.
Muta'Ali: Possibly. Yeah. And so that he was on that sort of press run.
And so Jason again, at Business Insider connected our team with him because, as in a promotion of his book, he was talking to press and, This was before charges were filed though. And so he was less apprehensive as he would have been say we, if we approached him a week or so later.
So when we interviewed him none of the charges that you see listed on the screen at the end of the film were a reality. And so I think. He felt I, in my interpretation that he had reached a point in his life where he was wanting to atone. He had this sort of Zen sort of spirit about him and I, I appreciate that.
And so I think that put him in a position where he was like, sure I'll grant you the interview. And it was odd at the end of the interview, I had the sense that he was being honest with us to a certain degree, but I also had the sense that he might've been Less, less aware of the effect he had on things than I expected him to be.
Speaker: And
Muta'Ali: so that, that was a little bit off putting. And I think that comes across when I watch it in the theater with audiences, they're a little bit surprised at the stance he takes and how cavalierly he speaks about yeah. Certain turning points in MoviePass.
Devindra: Yeah, it's it's a bit baffling, basically as you talk more and more with him.
I have to say, I remember the first time I interviewed Mitch Lowe, too, I think it was after they pushed you out, Stacey. But sitting down, I was like, I was a little okay, who is this guy? I knew MoviePass. I know what MoviePass is about. I don't know this guy. I sit down and talk with him, and I know the difference between people who love the industry that they're in and who believe in the product.
And the marketing people and the marketing people who are just like, Oh yeah growth. We know exactly how we're going to attain the metrics we need to be more popular. And it felt like from the instant I started talking with Mitch was like, Oh yeah, he doesn't. Doesn't even actually get movies.
I think, I don't think he actually even loves the product. He just likes the fact that he's as part of this. So I think like when I saw that news, Stacey, it broke my heart because as somebody covering startups in tech, I don't see many startups founded by black founders, and this was one that had a great idea.
It was about something I personally loved, but I also knew there was potential to be great here. Can you talk about that moment? The moment of. Basically, when Mitch Lowe told you that you had to leave the own company, the company that you founded.
Stacy Spikes: Yeah, it was quite bizarre. So there were, there was over a two month period.
The first wave was they told Himay and I on our December board call we had just hit a million subs.
Devindra: That's co founder Humei Watt, by the way, yeah.
Stacy Spikes: Yeah. So yeah, my co founder Humei Watt. And so on that board call they said, listen, we really like what you guys have done. HMNY is coming in. There's a total of five seats and it was Mitch had one seat.
Chris Kelly had two seats and then there was Humei and I. And so they said, we're going to give your seats, to HMMY. And we said expand the board. Why are you going to take off the founders? And Mitch said I don't want anyone, he literally said, I don't want anyone who works for me on the board.
It was like, okay. That was a bizarre comment, and we just agreed to disagree, and then afterwards, we went into Christmas, and January 8th, When we came back from the holidays. So it was the first, I think, not on Monday, but Tuesday, the second day back, I literally got an email that said, thank you for your service at MoviePass.
You're you're no longer needed and there'll be someone coming into your office, so please pack up. We'll be in touch. That it was just an email that just said that. Not even in person, brutal.
Devindra: You also, you talked about I think something Mitch said to you coming up when he came on as CEO and you were basically, I think, demoted to CEO.
That's at least how it felt to me from the outside. He said you were on parole, like as if like he didn't know if we were going to keep you here.
Stacy Spikes: Yeah. Yeah. So the first meeting we had was with. We was in San Francisco and Chris Kelly was on zoom and we were in Mitch and I were in a conference room and then Mitch flew out to meet the whole team in New York cause the company was always New York based.
And when we get there, he said, I want to meet with you before we go. And I'm going to meet each of the members of the team individually. He said, so going forward I'm going to have you be the director of marketing. I'll give you a higher position if I feel that it's deserved. Ah, but consider that you're on probation at this point, and depending upon the performance.
I and I was just like, that's where when Ali's interviewing me and he talks about the the the peel sketch, the key and peel sketch, can
Devindra: you give us a, can you give us a glimpse of what you were actually thinking and feeling at the time?
Stacy Spikes: I think you, you just don't have to be a jerk, right?
We, there was Kumbaya. We were like, great. Maybe having some gray hair and he might bring like, why are you coming aggressive that way where we're already said, great. Come on into the company. It just seemed unnecessary. And. Like a bad start of something. And so they ended up realizing they needed me a lot more and there were some things going on and I decided I was going to walk away and exit.
And then they said no we'll make you COO. Just don't leave. And and, but it was just out of the gate. It was like just bad form in my head.
Devindra: Like you can certainly tell at that point. And we should talk about like, why is it's Chris Kelly, your investor who really wanted somebody else to come in and lead the company.
And he liked Mitchell coming out of red box and other things that he's done. But you guys had trouble. You had a lot of trouble getting funding early on, even though. I think you had worked on some really interesting tech. You had proven that the product was really viable too, and good for theaters.
Can you talk about that aspect of it, of not actually being able to get the funding and, Hey, a white CEO comes in along with, Ted Farnsworth down the line, And then all of a sudden it is, it's like money is being thrown at them, or at least they are getting a lot more funding almost instantly.
Like they could snap their fingers and get money. That just seemed wild to me.
Stacy Spikes: I think Devindra did, this was one of our biggest, both concerns, but needs is you have to tell. Different than a lot of tech stories. You've got to tell a bit of a layered story here that there's two stories happening all the time.
Founders get ousted. It can be from bad behavior or you just not hitting metrics and investors get a little tired of you. But Devindra had to walk this really fine line of telling a true fact that minority investors do not get access to capital in the same way. You just don't. And the numbers are like
Devindra: shocking, right?
It is like basically 3 percent for women and minority founders, right? It's women,
Stacy Spikes: women and minorities combined. Is only 3%. And so I may, and I were very seasoned professionals. And we talk about this in the doc. Between boys to men and my music career and my film career, I had gross more than 3 billion in sales across the assets I had done, all before I was, 30.
So that's that's, you were one
Devindra: of the 30 under 30 profile. Yeah.
Stacy Spikes: So you can walk in the room and at least get some respect. If you can say I grossed a billion, a 3 billion, but it was just like, wow, why we're creating a Netflix for movie theaters and Netflix was hot as hell.
And. There was this category in this lane and we had finally figured the tech out and you're just asking yourself why are we having such a tough time? And I think Devindra just does an incredible job about that. And he can talk about it, but he just walks the line that you don't feel.
You don't feel the volatility, but you do get the message that he's trying to deliver.
Muta'Ali: Yeah,
Devindra: can you talk about how you conveyed that, Motele?
Muta'Ali: Yeah, it was a balancing act in, in terms of what, how much do we put in about that subject. And I think speaking with Stacey and Jaume I think I checked in a couple times to see how they felt about things.
I, I didn't want the film to end and people get, get want to reverse engineer, like back up away from arguments people might have when the credits roll Oh, they made it all about race and all this stuff. And I didn't, and I don't think Stacey and Norha may. who walk into a room and, race is like the top of mind.
I do think though that the film conveys on a few sides that people's biases play a role in how they initially categorize somebody. And in the, I think Mitch's ability to come across a certain way in terms of his appearance, and also Ted Farnsworth's ability, gave them a benefit of the doubt when you could argue that they maybe didn't, that wasn't warranted.
It's just the
Devindra: ability to like, cosplay success, basically. Hey, walk into a room and be like, hey, I'm, look at me. I got all this money, I got this company, I'm successful, let's party. Whereas you guys were like, no. Stacey like you guys were hustling to get the thing done to make a viable product and you love movies and it couldn't Happen there
Muta'Ali: and I often told myself and I haven't said in a while But I felt like it was people pursuing the American dream Yeah people regardless and these people other people who came from another world where they took advantage of others who had something unique I think there's certain categories of people who come up with something extremely unique.
And Stacey and Hameid did that. And other categories of people, I know I'm being judgmental, just know how to exploit it. And I think exploitation can be positive, if you want to make the best of a product and take it to where it needs to go. But it also can be negative, especially if you know how to work around the financial system the way that some people know.
It
Devindra: just feels I don't know, I don't know if this phrase has been coined yet, but it feels like startup colonialism. In the way that there are all these resources and all these things happening. Wow. There's a lot of value here. Let's mine that value. Let's have a ton of parties. And that basically the movie really conveys this of Mitchell and Ted Farnworth basically spending a lot of the money and capital of movie past the brand within a year.
To the point where it had to declare bankruptcy. You brought up some interesting numbers in the movie, Stacey. Like how much money were they losing per month versus how much money you guys were losing per month when you were in charge?
Stacy Spikes: Yeah. So when we were in charge, our burn was 200, 000 a month.
And when Mitch and Ted were running it. It was around 34 million a month. And the crazy thing was the crazy thing was what there's only a month and a half difference. From when they announced that they were buying us to being able to raise 150 million, it's the same company. You scratch your head wait, the brand was that strong that they were able to raise that kind of money.
What changed? The only change was the melanin of two. So the company was still the same, that everyone running it was still the same, but these guys walked in the room and were like, we're here, and give us some money. And that was very eye opening. And I think you, you talked about colonialism, but I think it's very similar.
To the early days when you had Jackie Robinson or players starting to show up on the field that looked different than what people are used to seeing. And there's a harder road that those early guys have to go. But if you can create innovation, I think that the more you can People like him and I show up the more in the venture capital will become colorblind, but there's still a, you don't quite look the role of what we imagine.
And even if it's 50 or 60 years old and mentioned Ted, it was, that's closer than what we think you are. You definitely are much further away from this ideal of colorblindness. What we think success could look like.
Devindra: Gotcha. Gotcha. It is. That's a sad story. Basically, I think that's seeing the rise or like basically the rocket ship growth of MoviePass and realizing from the beginning that it wasn't sustainable.
I felt really bad, first of all, that they had pushed you out, Stacey, but also that they were just like running the idea of MoviePass into the ground. And then there were the issues of basically not not letting the tickets work for certain things, which is I think it was the Mission Impossible movie at the time.
That was probably Fallout. But that's part of where we are now. And where we are now is MoviePass declared bankruptcy Ted Farnsworth from HMNY who had basically acquired MoviePass, or absorbed it in a way, and Mitch Lowe are now, they've both been indicted, right? So we're still waiting to see what happens with them.
That's a whole thing, but I think The sort of phoenix rising out of the ashes story here is that you've brought MoviePass back, Stacey, you are doing your own thing with it I know it's only in limited markets right now, but can you tell us like how is, how are things going now with the new movie pass?
Stacy Spikes: Yeah, so 2023 we opened in May nationwide, so now you can get it anywhere in the country. And we ended 2023 at a 23% profit margin. It was the first time in the history of the company that we've had a profitable year. And it's all due to the machine learning and AI systems that we built in place, and we've always been.
A FinTech company under the hood. And so a lot of the tech that wasn't there. And like you talked about at the end, at the beginning, the theaters are also in a different place, post COVID everyone's willing to experiment. And I think film fans are also used to subscription now as a concept.
So the headwinds the same headwinds aren't there and you can get much more down to business of tightening the screws and making sure the plane flies. So it's quite extraordinary. We're out. Raising around and raising capital. And it's good to be in a market that we want to help the industry get back up on its feet and go back to our critical mission of what we're doing to build the largest out of home cinema subscription company that there is.
Devindra: I guess final question for you too. It's like I mentioned, like every major theater chain now has their own subscription plan and down here I have a regal close to me, so I'm using their thing, but AMC has had a list for a while. And even that kind of became a meme, at least among, I don't know, movie Twitter people.
This would not have happened with that movie pass. But how do you compete against that now? Because they can offer, I think, cheaper prices and it's less of a hurt for the theater chains to do it, right? Because it's their own money. It's not like they're, it's not like they're really giving up that much, I think, in the end, and they ultimately get more concessions out of it.
So how are you guys competing with the homegrown theater subscriptions?
Stacy Spikes: Yeah. So the way the marketplace looks at it is they are loyalty programs, so you can only use them at that theater. So with us, you can go wherever you want. So I can have my AMC Stubbs, but use my MoviePass MasterCard and I can still get my points.
So I'm a Regal Crown Club member and I am an AMC Stubbs member. And even though I'm using my MoviePass, I'm getting points. So from a marketplace perspective, we see ourselves like the Airbnb of sales. Cinema where on it's a market where there is a buyer and a seller. So there is the theater where you're going to go in the same way.
There is a home that you will rent and there is a person who wants to. go to a theater and you're going to rent that seat for two hours, let's say. So we're more like Airbnb where you can just go wherever you want. And then we drive that traffic on top of that. We're also partnering with certain theaters.
that we display in the app where you are, we are buying wholesale from them and we're driving traffic right into them. So think of the universe where AMC, Regal, and Cinemark make up 50%. The other 50 percent really don't have the money to put millions of dollars in to manage a app that lets you be a subscriber.
So we're their app. And then there's the big three. And you, in the MoviePass universe, you can use it all. So the stat that we found was 75 percent of customers said they'd rather a one size fits all app versus an app that they can only use for one theater. So that's our market position which is slightly different.
Devindra: Totally makes sense. Okay. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing where it goes, Stacy and Devindra. And anything else you want to mention about this project or what you're working on next?
Muta'Ali: No, I just want to encourage people to check it out on HBO and on, on Max, it comes out on May 29th. So I hope you enjoy.
Devindra: Thank you both so much for joining us and yeah, good luck with everything guys. Thank you. Divindra, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Hey, Producer Ben here with a note. You might notice that there is something a little different about Mr. Nate Ingram's voice for the next 40 minutes or so. We had our fingers crossed that the construction outside his window wouldn't start until after we were done recording. But we didn't get that lucky.
There were big saws and a jackhammer. You could hear it on livestream. But you'll barely be able to hear it in the podcast because Audio Cleanup has gotten that good. We tried three different cleanup programs, two of which were powered by machine learning, and picked what sounded best. We'll talk more about Audio Cleanup next week, and you'll find out what app saved this nigh unsalvageable audio.
Thanks. Back to the show.
Devindra: Okay. Let's move on to some other news this week. And we got a bunch of news from Google. Apparently they're bringing a slew of AI powered features to Chromebook plus laptops that you're the perfect person here because, okay, first of all, remind us what Chromebook plus laptops are and also what are these features?
What's going on here?
Nathan: Yeah. So backing up a little bit last fall, Google and its hardware partners introduced Chromebook plus, which was basically a designation to say it meets a number of minimum specs, including at least an i3 processor, at least eight gigs of Ram. At least a 1080p display and there's a certain webcam spec it meets as well.
Obviously there's a million Chromebooks on the market varying price points, lots of really cheap crappy ones, a handful of more expensive, higher quality ones. And this is meant to say like this spec, you're getting a certain level of performance and so forth.
And. So I think that's a good thing. You know that if you're buying one of those, it should run pretty well. You're going to get the long, I think like 10 years of support they do now. At the time they announced, they were also going to bring some AI features to Chromebooks. And this month they actually released a lot of those.
There's basically three, there's three main things. One is like just a fun image generator you can use to make wallpapers and video backgrounds. There's like a handful of different styles and you just put in, I want a mountainscape with a purple lake in the front or that sort of thing.
Devindra: Okay, cool. Nate Chromebook plus also a style of Chromebooks that I was always a little skeptical about too. I don't think we have any sense of like how many people are actually buying these things. My thing is I know a thing is successful when I start to see it out in the wild with normal people.
I rarely see people outside of schools and businesses actually using Chromebooks, so certainly have not seen any Chromebook plus models either. In terms of these features, they seem cool, but also I guess I can't get really excited about it, right? Like I don't. Yeah. And Microsoft and all the other AI things are doing this too.
I don't know how useful the thing of just Hey, give me more texts. All right. Write this email for me, do this stuff for me. Is actually going to be because part of communicating is sitting down and thinking about getting those words. And I understand not everybody thinks they're a great writer or something, but I don't know if the AI will actually help or if people actually tap into it.
Do you have any sense of that, Nate? Have you used, you've been experimenting with some AI words lately we've seen in our Slack channel. Do you have a sense of like how people are using these things yet?
Nathan: Yeah. So what the feature is it's called help me write and it's system wide. So any text entry box, whether it's in a web app or an Android app or a, web form like LinkedIn or Twitter, you can write something in there and then click the help me write, and you can have it punch it up, or you can just give it a prompt and it'll fill in the text itself.
I agree with you. I don't, I just don't see it being useful. Like you said, part of the point of this is as you're writing, you sit down, you think about what you're trying to say. I think it's a little different for someone like you and me who make a lot of our living writing, but nonetheless, everybody communicates, everybody sends emails, everybody has thoughts in their head, and you put them down, and it sounds like you, usually, at the very least.
Whereas when you AI it, it doesn't sound like anyone. I don't really know what the point is of that.
Devindra: Yeah. So some of the AI texts you sent us Nate in Slack it just sounded like you were talking like Steve Rogers. You all of a sudden sounded like Captain America, hello team.
We're going to have a great day together. We're all going to accomplish all of our work and things like that. It just felt so disingenuous and unreal. I think the prompt there was like,
Nathan: send a heartfelt but slightly humorous greeting to my teammates as I get up this morning or something like that.
Basically, I could have just said, good morning, everyone. Not that I usually do that, I just thought it would be a funny way to kick off my little AI text experiment. I'm thinking so there's the, help me write, there's the AI background, which is just, for image
Devindra: generation,
Nathan: Although I'll be with a pretty narrowly defined set of rails, like you have to, you can't just put in whatever you want in this particular part of the tool.
But also the Chromebooks all have Gemini, the Gemini app built in now which is something, it's the same thing. I think you'd see if you go to the Gemini site and you start. Entering your text prompts. But what's interesting at least is that Google's also including, if you buy a new Chromebook plus they're including 12 months of their AI Google one plan.
So that's a 20 buck a month plan that gives you two terabytes of storage and drive as well as access to Gemini advanced. So just from a pure, monetary standpoint, that's a pretty good thing. And even if you never touched the Gemini advanced, The storage itself is worth, a hundred bucks a year.
So you're getting a decent little for a decent little boost there.
Devindra: Yeah. Just for when you're, I want to point this out and I don't want to sound like I'm just picking on Google because I love to pick on Google especially when they have expensive products that I think have a very limited appeal.
But the whole thing about like image generation as a con, as a background creation tool, or. Also seems like a nothing burger to me. And honestly, I feel this way about co pilot and the chat GPT all this stuff, Dolly, Dolly's like image generation too. Cool. Cool. That I can write a word, a string of texts and have a really interesting detailed image appear.
What the hell do I do with that? Am I going to use that for to send to my friends? I'm going to use it to create things, to plug into presentations. That's what Microsoft thinks you'll do. On Google sites, just Hey, cool backgrounds, man. Cool backgrounds for your, for your Chromebook, you could, you, five seconds, you can find a cool background image, online.
I was going to say that the
Nathan: funny thing is that I started playing around a little bit and got like a kind of a handful of kind of cool pictures, but. I would rather almost always use some of the other included wallpapers. They have a great on Chromebooks and on Android, they have an extensive image library with lots of like really gorgeous landscapes and cityscapes.
I've always actually really appreciated that about those devices. And so I'd much rather just use those. Then make anything with AI
Devindra: Windows and Macs, right? Like both Microsoft and Apple have done a good job of getting really cool. Nice. But photographic imagery that just looks cool. It looks chill.
Like I don't feel like the aerials
Nathan: that they added to Mac iOS last year. Super cool. Super cool. Huge file sizes that can quickly take up your hard drive. If you. Go ham like I did and download a ton of them, that's okay.
Devindra: Yeah, it's the idea of the aerial stuff is good because that was taken from Apple TV 4k, but that was just like, Hey, what if video screensaver melts into photorealistic wallpaper?
Beautiful stuff.
Nathan: There was speaking of images. There was one last tool they included here. Which is Google photos the magic editor, which I believe has been available on the pixel devices for a while. And then I think more recently it's moved to more Android devices and I think iOS as well.
But you haven't been able to use it on a laptop until now, because you can get the Google photos app on the Chromebook. And then there you can do things like, select certain parts of the photo and move them around or resize them, change the background or the the color of the sky, that sort of thing.
I have a real issue with that, just broadly speaking, because I don't like to Take photos and make it really easy to completely manipulate them into a reality that didn't happen. You're going to have a bad
Devindra: time over the next few years,
Nathan: Nate.
Devindra: Yeah. I know
Nathan: that people have been doing that on Photoshop for years, obviously.
But that takes skill and training to, to make something look good. Whereas now you can just like literally circle a person and delete them from the picture. And obviously your results will vary. I'm sure they're not as good in real life as they are in Google's highly controlled, demos and that sort of thing, but yeah.
Magic editor. It's a weird one. I haven't used it much yet. I'm going to play around that just so I can know more about it. But
Devindra: it is odd. It's it's odd. It's cool image editing. Easy image editing is something a lot of people would want. So I get that. I also feel like in Google and Microsoft and everybody opening eye to, they want you to pay these monthly fees.
They want you to have. Basically pay money to get cloud powered AI going. And when there's more stuff on device, like what Microsoft is talking about with their co pilot plus systems, maybe what we'll see from Apple in iOS and macOS this year you won't be paying a subscription for that. So that's a whole other like way of positioning this stuff.
They just want you to pay more money, right? That's it. They just want you to pay a recurring fee that you'll pay forever because you want to. Type a string of text and make a pretty image,
Nathan: yeah. And I'm going to play around with it because I now have Gemini advance, but I opened to Gemini and I look at it and I'm like, I have no idea what I want to do with this.
Like nothing pops into my head. It's a blank, it's a blank canvas and I have no tools at my disposal to go at it. And I suppose maybe that's my own limited thinking. But I just don't see it being something I would certainly, I wouldn't pay an extra 10 a month for. Yeah. On top of just getting Google drive storage, like right now not a factor whatsoever.
That's how I've been with all AI stuff. And I think, part of that is just like personal resistance too, because I don't see it being useful. And so I think I need to get over that a little bit and play with it more and start to try to understand what people do see in this. But, in terms of thing as a consumer product, I just don't think it's there yet.
It's not even close to being something that has a clear use case that people will want to spend money on.
Devindra: These companies really want AI to be the thing like that people get excited about in all their new platforms, but it's I don't know how useful any of this stuff will be.
Nathan: No, and I think we've seen, People discuss recently how it's really just been like a weird domino thing where it's somebody, open AI starts doing it and then Google and Microsoft scramble to catch up because, and then all of a sudden, once they're in, everybody's in and now everyone's trying to like air quotes catch up, but I don't know if they're trying to catch up to just, I, and I think lots of millions of other people just going on with their lives.
Doing using their computers the way they used to, this has not revolutionized anything yet. And this,
Devindra: this doesn't change it whatsoever. I think there may be more subtle tools going on. Like right now, what we're dealing with right now Nate, with your audio, actually your Mac, you're using a MacBook pro.
Has certain like voice isolation capabilities. We're not going to turn those on because our podcast editor wants clean audio to do their own. Their own edits on this stuff, but that's the idea is that you could do maybe real time transformations on things. There are currently jackhammers outside of Nate's window.
And if he could hit a button and just have those disappear because the the neural engine on his Mac can see that audio. We can actually do that stuff right now. And I feel like that sort of thing. It's going to be more useful to people the whole studio effects thing that Apple has and Microsoft is introducing to like the ability to do things that used to be complex and maybe hit your GPU quite a bit and also eat a battery life.
Those should be more efficient with an MPU, the neural processing unit that are on, new Intel laptops, new AMD laptops the neural engine that's on max. I guess that's the idea, but these like generative AI tools, I just don't know if those are the things, yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it because, I think the other thing that gets missed in this conversation so often is the fact that We have been, introduced to and using plenty of AI based tools, like what you mentioned for cleaning up audio automatically, or I think, maybe five years ago, I think Apple put the first neural engine in the iPhone, and none of us really knew what that meant at the time, but I think it's enabled a lot of things like the improvements they're seeing to photo processing, both, in Apple's phones as well as Google's phones, right?
There's a reason why the pixels are so good at producing great images. And that's because of the quality of the image, engine, I think. And like a lot of that stuff probably has to do with what's happened in the backend. So like that stuff, absolutely useful, but like generative stuff.
I still don't see it.
Devindra: Yeah, it's I guess it's tough to see it. Like the idea of Hey, I'm going to send you a 50 page PDF. Can you just get me a bullet point so I can feel like I'm up to speed with whatever this discussion is like that stuff could be useful, that stuff isn't fully available yet.
Open AI is multimodal. Like you can drop some things in there and ask you questions about it. I don't know how well it's doing with those sorts of summaries. That's part of the dream of copilot and copilot plus and everything that You could just send a PDF to Windows and have it deal with stuff.
I think one of the interesting features Microsoft showed off, Nate, is recall, which is the ability to just remember everything you've done on your computer because we're ba we have bad memories, but also it's rightly getting criticized for being potentially a huge invasion of privacy, potentially a huge security hold for a lot of people.
Do you have any thoughts on that, by the way, Nate, like just Of recalled you that was the thing announced last week and yeah, I remember huge fans of that.
Nathan: Yeah, that's really interesting. Talk to me a little bit about what the main, you alluded to it. But again, it's the kind of thing I could see being useful.
Also, yes I assume this is sending a lot of the data about what you do in your computer back to Microsoft. It's not sending it.
Devindra: It's not sending it. They say they're not sending it. It's local. But still, people are like even if it's like a local database of stuff, even if you've encrypted it with whatever, with the Windows stuff that's still a potential issue.
And also, it's enabled by default, and people may not be fully aware of what is captured. I see the issues there. Yeah. Yeah. The
Nathan: default is not a great move. They definitely, it's feature where if you like edit, you need to have a huge demo section. Like when you boot up after the update, like we have this new thing called this.
Here's how it works. And here's the privacy disclosures and. And here's where you can turn it on if you want and how to turn it off if you don't want, but I hear there is
Devindra: in the onboarding for when you get a new computer, I do hear that you will get an option to enable it there, but that's like when you do this on a Windows computer now, you get do you want to enable personalized advertising?
Do you want to tailor, location stuff? And I think most people don't even read those things and just click it to, I just want to use my computer. So that's fair. The bigger problem, hey, we don't know what's going to happen with any of this stuff, but all these companies are basically betting billions on the idea that we are going to really want AI tools and this stuff is going to make or break their I don't know their entire industries at this point.
So we'll be keeping an eye on it and actually related to this, Apple announced their WWDC 2024 plans. This week the keynote is going to be June 10th at 1 PM Eastern. I'm hoping to be there with at least one other person from Engadget. We shall see who we're still. Like finalizing our plans, but we're gonna, we're expecting to hear a lot more about AI.
There, there have been the reports about Apple essentially like working, trying to get deals with both Google and open AI about bringing their, generative search tools into Mac OS. Potentially even iOS too. So I think the latest rumor was that like, it seems like the open AI deal has happened or is happening.
We're also expecting Apple to talk more about their own, like built in generative, maybe not generative, but their own built in AI tools. Certainly some sort of like model some of their own local models is going to do some work. And I guess that stuff is cool, Nate. That's where I'm like, if CoPilot itself or Siri.
We're actually smart and I can actually say, Hey, can, what? What are my appointments right now? Can you reschedule this appointment and just talk to it naturally and have things get done? I feel like that is a useful thing for a lot of people.
Nathan: Yeah, and I think that's probably what's been missing most from Siri, et cetera over the years.
People love to smash Siri and I think that if, you know rightfully you
Speaker: can. Yeah.
Nathan: I think if you know what it can do and what you want to get out of it, it can work. But I think what you're saying is I'd love to say, Hey, what are my appointments today and have it understand that I have multiple calendar apps installed and to be able to look into those and say, yeah, okay, I can see all this stuff versus big you don't use Apple calendar.
So you're out of luck and I know that it's not that limited at this point. But it's also not that transparent to somebody again, that's the problem is like to get these like wonderful use case scenarios that all these companies like to show off, you've got to be like practically a software engineer yourself to to make it happen.
Devindra: Yeah, exactly. Hey, I think the idea of just wanting to speak to your computer and have it like we Google talked a lot about this to having a computer cater to your needs rather than you learning the behaviors of computer. I think that is a really interesting inflection point and it is something we're moving towards.
So we shall see,
Nathan: it's an, it's a noble goal that we are not yet there on do you think
Devindra: there's any hardware at this year? I feel like probably no, but probably no, but it is weird. I have not seen any rumors of M4 MacBooks at this point, because it also feels like we just got a lot of new hardware from Apple, but it is very strange that the iPad pro is the only M4 device right now.
I wonder if they're going to tease something. There have been rumors about other types of devices from Apple. But yeah, there's no real like hardware rumors leading into this WWDC. I think they're going to spend a lot of time talking about vision pro like vision OS and like the stuff they're doing around that.
And they've proven that, Hey, they can really reshape the way you know, the vision pro works just by software because they didn't have enough time to bake in all the features. I'm expecting to hear more about that. It's going to be all AI, most likely like all AI and how AI is going to build itself into iOS macOS and everything.
That's my guess. But we shall see. So you know what, folks, let us know. It makes me tired just thinking
Nathan: about
Devindra: it. Yeah. I'm so tired. I'm so tired at this point. Let us know folks what you want to see from DubDub this year. And yeah, how you think these AI tools are going to you. What will, what are the AI capabilities you're really looking forward to?
Drop us an email at podcastandengadget. com. Also sell this news. This week, the Fitbit Ace LTE Google's Fitbit division has basically produced this it's a wearable, like gaming smartwatch for kids, but it also has LTE and also has like tracking features for parents too. So it looks like something that can help kids get around.
Get outdoors and go have fun. And it's Tamagotchi like depending on their movement, but it also has like communication abilities. So kids can get in touch with their parents and parents can see where they are. I don't know if you have thoughts about this, Nate, but this happened and Trillian wrote up a really nice hands on this thing.
So I want to acknowledge that Google is making hardware again, a little bit.
Nathan: Yeah. I like this just from, again, I have no idea if this is going to where I'm sure it won't. It reminds me of how Apple introduced with the Apple Watch the sort of like family setup where you can have somebody who's got the master control over these connected devices so that kids can't like, go wild and whatever but the game stuff, I don't know, it just, it seems like a cheeky bit of fun that, Isn't trying too hard.
Like it seems like goofy and unique enough to be potentially fun. But again, like no idea what chance there is for this to reach an inflection point where enough people will be using these things of kids will be using these things that it goes anywhere. That said, one of our editors, Cheyenne McDonald, loves Tamagotchi.
She has a wrist worn one. She wears like a watch. And I would love to see her try this thing on and and see what kind of fun she can have with this thing, because she has already proven herself to be into quirky little games that you wear on your wrist, so I feel like she's the perfect one to check that out.
Devindra: This specifically does seem like a thing for kids, though, is the thing. Tamagotchi, I feel they were kids toys, but You could almost make it a little kitschy, right? As a teenager or even as a young adult? Or like actual, yeah, definitely. There's like a
Nathan: huge kitch factor. I dunno if that's sneer for this now, for this thing, no.
'cause there's no legacy, there's no, history, there's no oh, I have fond memories of this when I was, if there're a teen or whatever. So yeah it's, it is very much geared towards children. It says seven and up is what they're targeting on.
But, I feel like you look at this thing in the visuals and the way it looks and I'm like, this is a 7 to 11 or 12 device at best.
Devindra: Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah. It's like a time before your kids will have smartphones, most likely. Stuff like that. Exactly. Yeah. But you can get in touch
Nathan: with them if you need to.
You can, whatever. That's what I get Apple pitch with the watch LTE is that you can have a kid wear it and they can contact you, but no one else or whatever. Yeah,
Devindra: I think that's why this thing exists. Like Apple or Google doesn't really have a good option for you. It's just give your kid a thing and be like, okay, this will be part of our family plan.
And we know where you are. We can get in touch with you in case of emergency. Whereas I know a lot of people do that with the Apple watch, that is something yeah. My daughter is going to be going to like kindergarten and public school soon. Like in a couple of years, she'll be doing stuff in like lower grade levels.
And I don't want to like microchip my kid, but if my, if she could have a thing that could just keep her in touch with us, with my wife and I, like when we need to, I feel like I don't think that's too overboard parenting wise. And I think a lot of people would be into it and kids. Want to do it too. Like sometimes they need that reach out ability too.
So something I'm considering and that's what the Apple watch ended up being good for. I don't think Apple even considered that at the beginning of the night. So it's just how it worked out. So I guess once again Google's maybe a couple of years too late to offering something like this, but okay.
I could see how it could be useful. That's the whole thing. Nate, you wanted to talk about this interview, which I think is really wild. There was an interview published by Sony with Naughty Dog head, Neil Druckmann, where he talked about AI allowing us to do things. And then Sony ended up pulling that interview and Druckmann also, I think on Twitter was like, Hey, I, this is not the full extent of what I said.
Here's a direct quote from me. What the hell happened here?
Nathan: Yeah, this was wild. I pay a lot of attention to Naughty Dog, they make some of my favorite games. Oh, we know names, we know. As you, if you've listened to me talk before, you know this. And so yeah, Sony published this interview, it's like a big like studio show off our creative talents and talk about the future of interactive entertainment and that sort of thing.
So Druckmann obviously with the success of the HBO series as well as the games. Logical choice for this, right? And yeah, there were two things that got the internet mad, one of which is the AI bit you mentioned, and the second one's where he talked about how the new game Naughty Dog is working on would quote unquote redefine gaming as we know it.
Something to that extent. Very highfalutin, very made him sound like a bit of an egotistical maniac to some degree, if you want to look at it, through a sort of cynical eye. And then, yeah, a few days later, he goes on to, after there's been some backlash and some upset, talk around this, he goes on Twitter and literally drops the receipts.
He's here's the transcript of what I said 450 words, and then here's what it was condensed into 100 words. But to go even further, a gaming reporter his name has escaped me right now, but it's in our story. He went out there and looked at the transcript and compared it to the answer and bolded all of the words in the answer that didn't appear in what he actually said and it was almost the entire quote like it seems like Sony made up whole cloth some of these quotes, which is just bonkers.
And it's not often you see some, somebody like directly contradict like a giant corporate overlord like Sony, obviously Druckmann has tons of power on his own, but still to just go on Twitter and be like, no, this isn't what I said is a pretty like unusual move. And then it gets even better because Sony removed the interview, but instead of just like taking the page down and pretending it never happened, they actually put up an apology page saying we've removed this because it contained quote significant errors And yeah, and then, when he said like what the errors were there's a great, there's a great quote where it says We have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don't represent its respective values, including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects, which is basically the entire
Speaker 7: interview.
Oh, yeah.
Devindra: I almost wonder what the hell happened here because, hey, these interviews are conducted by basically like in house media people. Sometimes they're former journalists. Sometimes it's just like a PR person that's like transcribing an interview. So It's tough to tell like how this stuff went down. I almost wonder if some of this was AI transcribed and they like just didn't do it or something like that.
That would be a
Nathan: conspiracy theory.
Devindra: That'd be the full thing to go around. But Hey, I will admit I use AI transcription tools sometimes too. Like it's a really good thing when it works, but you have to go over it and make sure the words actually are actually spelled right. And refer to the things you think they refer to.
This is just wild. Also speaking about
Nathan: Neil, if you're listening. I listen to the interviews I record and type them all out word for word. Happy to have a chat sometime about Naughty Dog's future projects. I will not make up entire
Devindra: quotes. I promise. You promise. Listen, you're like you are the Naughty Dog like fan right now, Nate.
So yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. We've got a Sony there's a Sony state of play tonight. So supposedly 14 new games in 30 minutes. I have my fingers crossed for some news on this new project, but not holding my breath. Also,
Devindra: let's briefly talk about this. There was the story too, that apparently both the Atlantic and Vox Media announced that they have made deals with OpenAI to essentially, what is it, allow their content to be absorbed, but also they'll be paid for it.
That's essentially. Yeah,
Nathan: They didn't talk about terms, obviously, but basically OpenAI has been making these deals with several large publications or publications, large and small say. Where they're, they will ingest their contents and, chat GPT will use it as a source for when you're asking questions and that sort of thing.
In this case for both Fox media and the Atlantic they made a point to note that there will be citations. So chat GPT will say, based on, this report from so and and with links out to the original sources which I sounds to me like a way of getting ahead of the whole concern of AI is going to kill, Publishing because it won't direct people to these pages anymore.
It'll just summarize the articles for you and no one will click on the actual article.
Devindra: Maybe it won't matter if you're getting paid, right? If the media companies are getting paid for that. And I actually don't see a huge problem with that because Google's doing it already. Google is crawling the internet, right?
And like every media company, everybody on the internet has like a deal with the devil with Google. You have to be good for Google's SEO. You have to be good to play nice with Google to rank well and stuff like that. And now it's yeah, the Google, that's a really good
Nathan: point. This is just a kind of a different flavor of that.
I suppose I feel like we are beholden
Devindra: to these companies that essentially control the internet or at least media on the internet. And people are looking at stuff like opening eyes, like summaries and everything as being like the next intranet in a way, or at least. It's the next way we engage with what's online.
Next it's the new search, right? It's the new search. Essentially. What is funny is that the Atlantic last week published the post called media companies are making a huge mistake with AI. And notably, this is not like by a staff writer. This is by Jessica lesson who like, this is some inside media stuff is she is the founder and owner of the information.
Which is a major technology news site. So this is almost like a guest piece, Yeah, it feels like an
Nathan: opinion. And of course, I appreciate the like separation of the newsroom and the business side of this case. It's interesting you mentioned that too, because I got a newsletter from Vox.
com, the news site, not the media organization, but they're flagship news sites and the newsletters, obviously, and they had a similar thing talking about all the risks of AI and how it's going to affect media and that sort of thing. Obviously the newsrooms are thinking about this whilst the business side of things goes ahead, and I was going to say that it feels like, you said you either make the deal with the devil if you're or if you're a powerful enough, like a New York Times, who is suing open AI for all this, you can sue them.
But I think most companies aren't in a position where they can do that. And now they're like, okay we'll get some revenue hopefully out of this. And of course, I actually don't fault Atlantic or Vox media or any of the other companies has done this because recognizing it's a difficult situation.
And it's easy for me to jokingly poke fun at these companies when, there's an equally a chance that our parent company will go ahead and do something similar in the next We have no personal
Devindra: say
Nathan: about what happens at Yahoo or No, this could easily happen.
Devindra: Yeah.
Nathan: And of course, I think again, worth noting that neither Vox nor The Atlantic talked about.
Generating articles or content with AI, right? It's not that kind of thing. I think that's the real,
Devindra: the real concern. Like the more of the clip, more closely you align yourself with these AI companies. Hey use some of our tools. Let's do some, Hey, you want some auto summaries of your stories? You can use our tools to do that.
And a lot of sites have auto summary stuff happening like already. But who knows? Who knows? That's eventually going to be a thing that. I, you could right now can get a simplified version of a webpage on iOS or I think even max now. So it's like a little bit of an AI engine in a future iPhone.
Just be like, Hey, just can you summarize this whole thing for me? That's like where we're going. So even if it's happening on device. Same kind of same problem, but maybe at least you get the ad revenue for that, Like maybe at least it sees the page at some point. We don't know how any of this stuff works It's all black magic folks.
I've been writing for the internet since 2009 And nobody has any clue about how it all works Unfortunately and
Nathan: to throw back to the the thing in chrome os the whole like help me write thing I'm like, okay, so we're gonna start using help me write to create, articles and then You know, Google and Gemini or chat GPT will summarize those AI created articles with a new summary.
And I'm like, Oh God, this is. Very much a snake eating its tail situation. We are clear. No, I'm, we're not using these things to create articles. We're not using these things yet,
Devindra: but maybe who knows, maybe we will use a summary thing. I just feel like for media companies who are currently facing some serious issues, Hey, we had our own round of layoffs.
Pretty much every major media site has dealt with this. They have to do something they have to do something to make money or to stay afloat while they figure out what to do with this whole new terrain of publishing, which will involve AI in some form. So it sucks. This is a crummy place to be folks, but we'll be reporting on it and let us know let us know.
Are you actually using the AI summary tools on some sites? The how are Google's recommended, search results and stuff that are up top their AI search results. Are those preventing you from clicking sites? Like I'd love to know how people are actually using this stuff. Nate, you know what?
Maybe we shouldn't be so worried about open AI because there's a new safety team. Led by its board members, including CEO Sam Altman, so therefore everything's fine.
Nathan: I'd love to have the CEO, whose only concern is the bottom line, also be involved with things like trust and safety.
Devindra: Yeah. They just two weeks ago, they dissolved the existing trust and safety team, which included people who may actually say no to some things.
And now this new one is just basically an opening eyes entire board and the CEO who was Again ousted last year for a weekend because the board could not trust the ceo. So I don't know. I don't know what's happening. This is
Nathan: a new this is a new board, right? That's now loyal to the ceo. It is a new board
Devindra: because yeah ilya satskever.
John likey ilya satskever was one of the people on the board who also voted to push sam altman out He apologized now he's off to do his own thing. But yeah, it is. You It's not exactly heartening Nate that such a powerful company in the media and technology landscape now is like a mess internally in terms of how it's being run.
That's not great.
We've got a couple of questions or some emails from listeners I want to shout out an email from Darren. I don't have your location here, but basically thoughts on Copilot Plus from a screen reader user. They write, I'm a screen reader user and notwithstanding the incredible leaps forward on built in accessibility features across most major platforms.
Windows is still the only desktop OS where there is a choice between multiple screen readers. A phenomenal productivity enabler when dealing with inaccessible websites or apps. So they're saying JAWS or job access with speech, which is a popular commercial screen reader natively supports arm. So they are looking forward to using a copilot plus PC that potentially has better battery life.
and performance. Also they're hoping that Microsoft will double down on supporting developers making native arm apps. We mentioned this x64 and x86 apps. It's the older stuff, like the older Intel chips and AMD chips aren't going away anytime soon, but arm seems like the focus. Darren writes overall, I'm not overly excited by AI itself, but if copilot plus brings about a more compelling windows on arm experience, that might be enough for me to go all in.
With my next laptop purchase. I think this is this is a good use case and certainly not a thing we talk about too much either. When I used to work in it, I've had to set up screen reader tools for people and it was always an interesting technology that barely worked. And I do think as we are, getting more powerful AI tools, potentially, like this is the sort of thing that could get better.
Do you have any thoughts on this, Nate?
Nathan: I think it's like a pretty important accessibility tool, right? So I think if ARM can make a difference there, like that sounds great to me. This made me just wonder have you gotten to use the new ARM based machines outside of the hands on?
At Microsoft,
Devindra: I've not seen the new ones yet, and I want to point out here specifically, Darren says they are hoping Microsoft will double down on supporting developers making native ARM apps. That's a big takeaway there. I don't want to. They should, I'm right, they
Nathan: have to if they're going to, if these computers are going to be successful.
They have to. Obviously the emulation is better this time than it was a few years ago. But that's not a long term solution.
Devindra: Yeah. So they say, but also this is Microsoft, like there, you can run some windows 3. 1 or like some really early windows apps still within windows, because that's, they have to support like a really wide range of like software and old stuff.
Do think like the prism emulator will probably be around for a long time. I don't know, like when will the arm version of windows be like the main version of windows? I don't know if that's ever going to happen just because this is like a specific question that there are, I think the last numbers I saw, there are like 1.
4 billion windows, like 10 and 11 devices out there. So that's a lot. That's good. It's gonna be a
Nathan: lot of right. And you can't cut support for those anytime soon. They're all running relatively modern versions of the OS. I think it's crazy that we still talk about like the idea of running a Windows 3.
1 or like even a little later application. I'm like, who the hell needs to do that? And I know there's some legacy industries where that's the case. But I think they're so specific that consumer wise, Microsoft would say, okay, we're just going to make this transition. And then if you're a weird legacy customer, then contact us and we'll have solutions for you.
But maybe that's not the most efficient way to do it.
Devindra: Absolutely. So anyway, we're, this is a certainly interesting sea change in the way, like Windows devices can work and what they'll support, and this could mean good news. Things for people who really depend on these devices too, for a lot of things.
So anyway, we have another email from Rohan who is I think following up a question or an email he wrote last year about using an iPad as a contributor as a computer. This is a very long email, but I'm going to read a couple of graphs here. When the original iPad was announced, he writes, it was clearly called out that the device needs to do a few things better than your iPhone and your Mac, or else it doesn't have to exist.
And that was like, Poking at netbooks back then. I remember that. However, when they launched the iPad nearly a decade and a half ago, it is precisely a burden of legacy that Apple is moving away from. To sum it up, every, anything and everything we dislike during the PC era cannot be repeated. And to be fair, the iPad did not repeat many of the mistakes.
Rohan is saying essentially this is the legacy of what's happening now is like Apple is still so beholden to the idea of not repeating the PC. It may not have like fully. Fully engaged, like how people may actually want to use the iPad. So Rohan points out just the idea of supporting like a real browser, a full on desktop browser, not just like a desk, like a quote unquote desktop class browser.
Nathan: I would love to dig into that bit particularly because. Obviously I use the iPad a lot. I, and I, this is a genuine question. I want to know what separates the iPad browser from a quote unquote real browser. Here's a,
Devindra: here's an example. His wife is working on a project in the company she's working with uses Google suite.
They sent her a survey for review. For some reason, she couldn't open it on her iPad on any browser, but it opened just fine on her iPhone running Chrome.
Nathan: So that doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense.
Devindra: Cause.
Nathan: I'm not saying he's wrong, but I don't know why that would be we don't know There's I actually use and it's interesting.
I use the Google Apps on the iPad, but also I've used the web apps in Safari and they work fine
Devindra: It's like when it gets some more complicated like hey Dealing with multiple attachments and things like that because file system is our CMS
Nathan: also. Yeah RCM It mostly works on an iPad But there's like a weird scroll error where I'm looking at our list of stories.
I can't get to the bottom where we can go to the next page.
Devindra: The iPad is made to basically like you have to engage in things through an app. That was like the idea of the iPad. And I don't feel like they've ever really fully moved on from that. So Ron says, because of this issue, they had to purchase a refurbished Mac book that runs a proper version of Chrome.
Yeah, that is just a weird things. Let me wonder how
Nathan: this will change now that apple has to open up the web the web browser engines and Support things besides webkit like chromium the current chrome browser on ios and ipad is still running is running webkit. It's like a thing on top of webkit
Devindra: Yeah,
Nathan: right.
So but I think that soon if not I think it's not available yet, but I think at some point you'll be able to run the full, Chrome using their engine. And that'll be interesting.
Devindra: I think that'll be like, like a real computer rather than a closed off like specialized Apple ecosystem. I feel like that's only going to be a good thing for consumers as much as Apple hates it.
And I'm sure it's going to lead to like more like malware and junk and potential vulnerabilities on your iPad, but. That may be a thing we have to live with for a more open type of computing. Rohan points out a couple of other things here. Just issues they've noticed the health app on his iPad won't sync.
I guess like with his iPhone stuff, he's on M1 air. Hey, I've noticed that too. The health app just doesn't even track things properly for me. That's a, it's a weird thing. Apple news puzzles won't sync progress between iPad and iPhone. Don't get him started on iMessage sync files is broken, does not find a file.
If he enters a full name correctly, even if taking care of the case and everything, there are a lot of these weird software issues and they, I don't know if you've just learned to deal with them, but like we talked about during the iPad pro episode if you wanted to record that episode with us on our streaming platform right now, I don't think you could do it.
I don't think there's only one
Nathan: audio stream support at a time. I, so I don't know, again, not discounting his experience, but this just sounds like using technology issues. Like I don't have any problems that I message saying it could be the platform
Devindra: that it came through, but I see this all the time.
Here's the thing, like having worked in it, like this is it. This is the most annoying part of it. Everyone's got these random
Nathan: use cases. Everybody's got something that isn't working.
Devindra: And it doesn't make sense that something would work on the iPhone and not
Nathan: the iPad. No, I recently was trying to figure out something to this.
And I was like, where's all the storage going and looking at like my messages and, sync is fine. Like I get everything on all my devices. But like in terms of the storage it's using, I can't figure out why I'm like one machine is taking up 20 gigs and one machine is taking up 10. And, how do I How do I reduce this?
And yeah, the whole thing is just crazy.
Devindra: It's such a mess. Anyway, that's a cool, thank you for the emails, everybody. It's always good to talk about this stuff. Drop us more notes at podcasting gadget. com. We love your feedback. Let's move on to what we're working on. Anything you want to shout out, Nate?
Nathan: Yeah, I will probably be doing a lot of Chromebook stuff in the next few weeks as well as yeah, getting ready for WWDC and summer game fest. I don't. I think I'm attending of those in person, but certainly we'll be helping out on the home front with
Devindra: all the news. Cool, cool. Yeah, I'll also be, like, preparing for WWDC at this point.
Maybe another short trip, but looking forward to seeing things there. I'm also currently writing up a hands on the Vision Pro what if. Experience that whole thing. I was trying to get it done yesterday and just did not have time. It's interesting, but it's it's a mess.
It looks really cool because everything on the vision pro looks amazing. Thanks to those screens and like the power there, but playing it is not great. Because it, this thing was not made for, Games really. So like I'm saying,
Nathan: so it's both an, it's both like a air quotes movie and a game kind of it's like an interactive,
Devindra: it's like any VR experience you've had, which are some, sometimes you're watching something.
And sometimes it's Hey, you have to hold your fists up and point lasers. You're essentially like one of those people working who like the doctor strange people, like the, people with magic powers, you're one of those folks. You're collecting infinity stones. You have to use the shield and.
You go pew lasers and none of it feels very good because it's all controlled by hand tracking and it's like a mess, but it does look cool. And it's a cool, free experiment, I think from Marvel and the ILM interactive folks. So yeah. Could be a hint of what's to come. I think that's the best I could say about it.
Nathan: Yeah, for free too. I can't get too mad about it, right? Yeah, free if you have a vision
Devindra: pro,
Nathan: that's a fair caveat.
Devindra: Totally fair. Any pop culture picks for us this week, Nate?
Nathan: Yeah, so I there's this band out of the UK called Dotter. Last year they released their first album in six years.
And while unfortunately they didn't tour for it they just released this amazing thing. YouTube video of them performing the songs live with some of their friends And it's at this gorgeous studio in the middle of the uk somewhere like in this big farm what would love to go there and play some music myself someday and it's really cool because it's all shot, with one camera basically there's one guy who films each song moving throughout the room And and then each song is a new take or whatever, but like each song is its own take and it all culminates with the last tune where the singer she's singing in this room by herself the beginning of the song is very quiet It's just her and her guitar And then at the midway point this whole like Orchestral band comes in and she puts the guitar down and walks through the studio Into another room where the whole rest of the band is there playing and she joins them and it's just gorgeous song You Gorgeous filming really unique stuff.
If you like slightly sad, but really pretty indie music arcade fiery type
Devindra: stuff sounds like arcade fire type stuff maybe.
Nathan: Not as much bombast more you know quieter, like the national a little bit but That sort of thing. They're great. They're on the nationals label.
So there you go. I'm thinking that thank you for the whiny
Devindra: indie rock nate Yes. No, it's no she's she doesn't whine she emotes She emos. Close very close. I want to shout out a movie called hitman which is going to be on netflix soon This is not the adaptation the two adaptations of the hitman video games.
This is The Richard Linklater film, which is a ton of fun. Really? It's funny. It's romantic. It's just like genuinely endearing. It stars Glenn Powell, who's like the new it guy in Hollywood. He was in Top Gun 2. He's in a rom com this year that everybody loved. He's going to be in a, that Twisters sequel coming up.
And it's a fun premise. Twisters. I don't know if I'm going to be excited about Twisters, but he looks fun. Like I like him and pretty much everything. And the premise for this movie is really fun too. Cause he plays a professor who's like a boring dude, like a boring nerd. But he moonlights as somebody who helps police.
He's also like a tech guy. So he helps police like capture criminals. Like he helps with the wiring and stuff. And it gets to a point where essentially he. It's helping police by pretending to be a hired hitman and it's like a way to entrap people who would call up a hitman to murder family members or whatnot.
That's the premise and things get a little wild from there. I think this movie is a lot of fun. It's in not many theaters right now, but if you can see it there, that would be great. It's also going to hit Netflix on June 7th. Just a week
Nathan: then. And I was gonna say, yeah, it's been out for a little bit, right?
It's been out in theaters for a week,
Devindra: I think, at this point. But yeah, Glenn Powell's fantastic. Adria Orjana, who is who is in. What's the star Wars and or she's been a bunch of things. She's also fantastic in this great cast, really funny script, just a good time. Just like a good feel good movie that I think hits all the right notes.
So check it out, folks. That's hit man on Netflix. Now this all reminds me too, that I I finally started watching the pair. Obviously I'm late to the party, but damn, it's good. It's very good. Wait till you get to season two, Nate. That's it for this week, folks. Our theme music is by game composer, Dale North.
And our outro music is by our former managing editor, Terrence O'Brien. The podcast is produced by Ben Elman. You can find me online and at DaVentura on Blue Sky, Twitter, all over Mastodon. Where can we find you, Nate? I'm mostly on threads
Nathan: these days at Nate Ingram. I don't post frequently, but I lurk around and read.
And when I have. Stupid thoughts. That's where they end up.
Devindra: Not Twitter though. Yeah. Sorry. Not Twitter. Not Twitter. You can email us at podcastinggadget. com. Also say hi to Sherlynn. Tell her if you miss her or whatever, leave us a review on iTunes and subscribe on anything that gets podcast folks.
Thanks. We're out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-moviepass-founder-stacy-spikes-on-the-moviecrash-documentary-113040803.html?src=rss
In this March 26, 2019, photo Stacy Spikes, co-founder of MoviePass, poses for a photo outside the Film Forum theater, in New York. After selling the company, he watched from the sidelines as new owners quickly expanded, only to find the cost of all those movie tickets too high to sustain. Spikes spoke with The Associated Press recently about the state of movie theaters. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Acer has unveiled the new SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera specifically for those who want to take 3D photos and videos. Users can not only use it to capture 3D content, but also to livestream in 3D on YouTube and other platforms, as well as to make 3D video calls on Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. The company describes the camera as "compact" and "pocket-sized," with dimensions measuring 4 x 2.6 x 0.9 inches.
It has a resolution of 8 megapixels per eye and a built-in selfie mirror encased in a weather-proof shell. The more casual users can take advantage of its Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) feature, along with its auto and touch focus capabilities. But experienced photographers can customize their output as much as they want to in manual mode, which will allow them to adjust the camera's ISO, white balance and shutter speed settings.
The camera's 3D livestreaming feature will be enabled by version 3.0 of Acer's SpatialLabs Player, while high-resolution 3D video conferencing will be made possible through the company's SpatialLabs video call widget. It will, of course, be compatible with Acer's range of SpatialLabs devices, including laptops with glasses-free 3D screens. But you can view 3D content captured by the device even on other companies' AR or VR headsets and 3D projectors.
The Acer SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera will be available in the third quarter of the year with prices starting at $549 or €549 in the US and in Europe, respectively.
Acer
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/acer-launches-a-compact-spatiallabs-camera-for-3d-photos-and-videos-060035723.html?src=rss
Acer has added three new gaming monitors to its Predator lineup, all of which have OLED displays and speedy refresh rates. The models — Predator X27U F3, Predator X34 X5 and Predator X32 X3 — work with NVIDIA's G-SYNC and AMD's FreeSync Premium Pro technologies to prevent tearing, stuttering, ghosting and input lags while you're gaming. They also feature true 10-bit color depth enhanced by a 99 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which means more color depths, higher contrasts and deeper blacks. The models come with stands with adjustable height that can tilt and swivel, and they're all equipped with two 5-watt speakers.
The Predator X27U F3 is a 27-inch monitor with a 2,560 x 1,440 pixel resolution and a 480 Hz refresh rate. It's outfitted with a USB-C and two HDMI 2.1 ports, and its stand has a tripod mount socket that can support streaming accessories like lights and cameras. The model will be available in the third quarter with prices starting at $1,200.
Meanwhile, the Predator X32 X3 monitor is a 4K UHD OLED display with a refresh rate of 240 Hz, though you can get that up to 480 Hz if you don't mind gaming in Full HD resolution only. The 31.5-inch monitor also comes with one Type-C and two HDMI 2.1 ports, and it will be available in the fourth quarter of the year for $1,200 and above.
Finally, the Predator X34 X5 has a 34-inch curved OLED screen with a 1800R curvature and a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440 pixels. It also has a 240 Hz refresh and a 0.03 ms response rate like the Predator X32 X3 model, though it doesn't seem like you can get a speedier refresh rate in exchange for lower resolution. The monitor has two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort and USB Type-C port, and it will be available in the fourth quarter for at least $1,100.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/acers-new-batch-of-predator-gaming-monitors-feature-faster-oled-screens-060033834.html?src=rss
Liz Reid, the Head of Google Search, has admitted that the company's search engine has returned some "odd, inaccurate or unhelpful AI Overviews" after they rolled out to everyone in the US. The executive published an explanation for Google's more peculiar AI-generated responses in a blog post, where it also announced that the company has implemented safeguards that will help the new feature return more accurate and less meme-worthy results.
Reid defended Google and pointed out that some of the more egregious AI Overview responses going around, such as claims that it's safe to leave dogs in cars, are fake. The viral screenshot showing the answer to "How many rocks should I eat?" is real, but she said that Google came up with an answer because a website published a satirical content tackling the topic. "Prior to these screenshots going viral, practically no one asked Google that question," she explained, so the company's AI linked to that website.
The Google VP also confirmed that AI Overview told people to use glue to get cheese to stick to pizza based on content taken from a forum. She said forums typically provide "authentic, first-hand information," but they could also lead to "less-than-helpful advice." The executive didn't mention the other viral AI Overview answers going around, but as The Washington Post reports, the technology also told users that Barack Obama was Muslim and that people should drink plenty of urine to help them pass a kidney stone.
Reid said the company tested the feature extensively before launch, but "there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches." Google was apparently able to determine patterns wherein its AI technology didn't get things right by looking at examples of its responses over the past couple of weeks. It has then put protections in place based on its observations, starting by tweaking its AI to be able to better detect humor and satire content. It has also updated its systems to limit the addition of user-generated replies in Overviews, such as social media and forum posts, which could give people misleading or even harmful advice. In addition, it has also "added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful" and has stopped showing AI-generated replies for certain health topics.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-putting-more-restrictions-on-ai-overviews-after-it-told-people-to-put-glue-on-pizza-011316780.html?src=rss
Bloober Team's remake of Silent Hill 2 is due to hit PlayStation 5 and PC on October 8, and it's looking nice and spooky. It's available to pre-order on the PlayStation Store and Steam.
It's been less than two years since Konami and Bloober Team announced the Silent Hill 2 remake, though news of its existence leaked a few months beforehand, giving fans plenty of time to catastrophize the situation. Today we got the first gameplay trailer for the remake, showcasing familiar hallways lined with bloody nurses, low-light environments crawling with bugs, and other nasty surprises that have always been lurking in the sleepy town of Silent Hill. With modern visuals, lighting and sensibilities, it all looks eerily beautiful.
The release date trailer dropped during today's PlayStation State of Play showcase. Right after that, Konami held a separate event just for its numerous Silent Hill projects, including an extended look at the Silent Hill 2 remake.
Bloober Team is the studio behind the Layers of Fear franchise, Observer, Blair Witch and The Medium — all perfectly serviceable psychological horror experiences. Still, there's a lot to live up to here: Silent Hill 2 is a beloved, classic horror game. It hit the PlayStation 2 in 2001 and, more than 20 years on, plenty of fans are anxious to see how the remake will hold up. Bloober Team has completely rebuilt the game, including full performance capture and swapping a semi-fixed camera for a modern third-person perspective.
Bloober Team co-founder Piotr Babieno told Engadget in June 2023 that the studio shifted its entire game-making ethos for the Silent Hill 2 remake. Instead of leading with mood and set dressing, they made mechanics the foundation of the on-screen terror, using player input to generate disquiet. The Layers of Fear collection that came out last summer marked the end of Bloober Team's psychological-horror era. As Babieno said last June:
“This year is like closing the era of making psychological horror games. Right now we are going into Bloober Team 3.0, making mass-market horror.... We decided that our next titles should be much more mass-market oriented. We’d like to talk with more people. We’d like to deliver our ideas, with our DNA, not by environment or storytelling, but by action. So all of our future titles will have a lot of gameplay mechanics. They will be much bigger.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/silent-hill-2-remake-hits-ps5-and-pc-on-october-8-230731258.html?src=rss
Sony’s lovable robo-mascot is getting a new game. During its PlayStation State of Play on Thursday, Sony dropped a trailer for the upcoming PS5 title Astro Bot. The 3D Mario-esque title, a sequel to the beloved pack-in, Astro’s Playroom, arrives on September 6.
The trailer sees our pal Astro wading through puddles full of pink flamingos, grappling across platforms like Bionic Commando and summoning a PS5 console to help fight a giant green alien in a UFO (as one tends to do). In a nod to old-school PlayStation, the trailer even includes a cameo from PaRappa the Rapper.
Sony describes Astro Bot as a “supersized adventure” that spans over six galaxies and 80 levels as you search for your lost crew. You’ll have over 15 new abilities, and, like in its predecessor, it will serve as a showcase for the various sensors and haptics in the DualSense controller.
Astro Bot will be available for pre-order on June 7 ahead of its September 6 release date.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonys-astro-bot-is-getting-the-mario-like-adventure-it-deserves-225716801.html?src=rss
OpenAI said that it stopped five covert influence operations that used its AI models for deceptive activities across the internet. These operations, which OpenAI shutdown between 2023 and 2024, originated from Russia, China, Iran and Israel and attempted to manipulate public opinion and influence political outcomes without revealing their true identities or intentions, the company said on Thursday. “As of May 2024, these campaigns do not appear to have meaningfully increased their audience engagement or reach as a result of our services,” OpenAI said in a report about the operation, and added that it worked with people across the tech industry, civil society and governments to cut off these bad actors.
OpenAI’s report comes amidst concerns about the impact of generative AI on multiple elections around the world slated for this year including in the US. In its findings, OpenAI revealed how networks of people engaged in influence operations have used generative AI to generate text and images at much higher volumes than before, and fake engagement by using AI to generate fake comments on social media posts.
“Over the last year and a half there have been a lot of questions around what might happen if influence operations use generative AI,” Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s Intelligence and Investigations team, told members of the media in a press briefing, according to Bloomberg. “With this report, we really want to start filling in some of the blanks.”
OpenAI said that the Russian operation called “Doppelganger”, used the company’s models to generate headlines, convert news articles to Facebook posts, and create comments in multiple languages to undermine support for Ukraine. Another Russian group used used OpenAI's models to debug code for a Telegram bot that posted short political comments in English and Russian, targeting Ukraine, Moldova, the US, and Baltic States. The Chinese network "Spamouflage," known for its influence efforts across Facebook and Instagram, utilized OpenAI's models to research social media activity and generate text-based content in multiple languages across various platforms. The Iranian "International Union of Virtual Media" also used AI to generate content in multiple languages.
OpenAI’s disclosure is similar to the ones that other tech companies make from time to time. On Wednesday, for instance, Meta released its latest report on coordinated inauthentic behavior detailing how an Israeli marketing firm had used fake Facebook accounts to run an influence campaign on its platform that targeted people in the US and Canada.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-says-it-stopped-multiple-covert-influence-operations-that-abused-its-ai-models-225115466.html?src=rss
FILE - The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023, in Boston. OpenAI plans to halt the use of one of its ChatGPT voices after some drew similarities to actor Scarlett Johansson, who famously portrayed a fictional AI assistant in the (perhaps no longer so futuristic) film “Her.” (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
Save for Destiny 2, it's been a long time since there's been a first-person shooter from a PlayStation studio. As such, there's been quite a bit of interest in Firewalk Studios' Concord since it was announced a year ago.
We learned more details about the sci-fi game during Sony's State of Play showcase, including a release date and the first look at gameplay. It's coming to PS5 and PC on August 23, and there will be a beta in July. (Heads up: You will need a PlayStation Network account to play on PC.)
Firewalk says it focused on making sure Concord has tight movement, precise gunplay and a range of abilities — just as you might expect from a studio led by former Destiny developers. Given that it's a five vs. five hero shooter, there are plenty of similarities with Overwatch 2 as well (Microsoft now owns that game, for what it's worth).
As you might imagine, there are several roles to choose from, while each of the initial 16 characters, who are dubbed Freegunners, has unique abilities. Firewalk aimed to make Concord approachable for a wide range of players, no matter their preferred play style or skill level. There should be at least one or two Freegunners whose abilities you can get to grips with relatively quickly.
You might throw exploding knives, deploy spores that grant speed boosts, drop a healing pad, cast a wall of fire or block an entire lane with a wall. Some of these abilities will persist on the map between rounds and respawns, and others are designed for more spontaneous use.
There will be six different game modes at launch. Firewalk plans to add more modes, Freegunners, maps and cinematic vignettes as free post-launch updates.
There's a lot of competition in this genre and in the live-service market overall. But Sony already has a hit shooter this year in Helldivers 2. Concord has made a solid impression to date, so it has a fair chance of being successful too.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sonys-overwatch-esque-concord-is-coming-to-ps5-and-pc-on-august-23-224046362.html?src=rss
The Until Dawn remaster is heading to PS5 and PC this fall. Sony gave the announcement at its State of Play event after teasing the game earlier this year. The company also dropped a new trailer, and it certainly looks like a spooky delight. In other words, that fall release date is starting to make sense from a themed holiday perspective.
The Until Dawn remake was built in Unreal Engine 5 and boasts several new features that were missing from the original PS4 title. You'll be able to experience the action from a third-person perspective for the first time, which is pretty neat. Developer Ballistic Moon, taking the reins from original dev Supermassive Games, has also said it has expanded the color palette to make it more cinematic and to allow for contextual character movement animations.
We don’t have an exact release date other than fall, but I’ll put money on October. In related news, Sony’s prepping an Until Dawn movie which should release sometime in the nearish future.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/until-dawn-is-coming-to-ps5-and-pc-this-fall-223945702.html?src=rss
Sony has ported lots of its biggest games to PC recently, and the next one will beGod of War Ragnarok. As part of the State of Play presentation, Sony showed off a trailer for the most recent adventure of Kratos and his son Atreus, and it looks as good as ever. It'll have unlocked frame rates, ultra widescreen monitor support and plenty more visual trickery for PC players, and it'll also include the recently-released Valhalla DLC. It's not a huge surprise, given that the 2018 revival God of War also came to PC a few years ago, but it'll be welcomed by those who want to continue the journey.
As far as visual upgrades go, Sony confirmed in its blog that it'll support NVIDIA RTX DLSS, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution and Intel XeSS for upscaling the whole thing to whatever screen you're using. And Sony wasn't kidding about the widescreen support — it'll work with 32:9 monitors.
God of War Ragnarok (and its 2018 predecessor) are classic entries in the series, with the engrossing single-player narrative-driven vibe of many of Sony's recent first-party studio games. But the combat is just as good, and Ragnarok adds a lot of new twists to the God of War universe. It's one of my favorite games of the last few years, and it should look positively excellent on high-powered PCs. It'll be available on September 19, and you can pre-order it now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/god-of-war-ragnarok-comes-to-pc-on-september-19-222235889.html?src=rss
Microsoft and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have forged a labor neutrality agreement for all ZeniMax workers. The CWA says the deal is similar to the one from 2022 covering Activision Blizzard’s workforce, which went into effect in April of this year.
“Thousands of our ZeniMax co-workers now have a free and fair path to organize together for better working conditions,” Page Branson, a Senior Quality Assurance (QA) Tester, wrote in a CWA press release.
In 2022, the Xbox maker signed a formal agreement with CWA to respect Activision Blizzard employees’ right to organize. Set to take effect 60 days after Microsoft’s acquisition closed, it didn’t become official until earlier this year. It also extends Microsoft’s early 2023 recognition of ZeniMax QA workers’ right to unionize, and it now includes every eligible employee at ZeniMax.
The CWA says the new agreement means Microsoft will take a neutral approach when employees express interest in joining the union. The workers can communicate with their peers and union reps about membership “in a way that encourages information sharing and avoids business disruptions.”
According to the CWA, workers will have access to a decision-making process that respects their privacy if they wish. In addition, it includes a dispute resolution and arbitration process in the case of any disagreements between the union and Microsoft.
“When we organized our union under a similar legal agreement the process was clear and management did not try to influence anyone’s decision and the company did not try to interfere with the voting process,” Branson wrote. “There is strength in numbers, and as our numbers grow at ZeniMax, at Microsoft, and in the video game industry, we will gain the respect we deserve and raise the standards of working conditions for everyone across the video gaming industry. When we benefit, the consumer and the company will ultimately benefit with us and help keep this industry stable for current and future workers.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-and-cwa-forge-labor-neutrality-agreement-covering-all-zenimax-workers-212643324.html?src=rss
It'll soon be Apple's turn to talk about its next major operating system updates, giving developers a chance to get their apps ready ahead of a broad rollout this fall. The company's Worldwide Developers Conference is right around the corner. Apple is sure to reveal some of the main features of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, as well as what's ahead for the likes of watchOS, macOS and visionOS at WWDC 2024.
Given the current tech climate, though, it seems likely that Apple is about to follow its rivals by making a big leap into the realm of generative AI. That could be a major focus of the keynote, since those are the only two letters investors seem to give a hoot about hearing these days.
The Apple rumor mill never stops churning, so we've heard some bits and pieces about what WWDC will perhaps entail. It seems unlikely that we'll get any major hardware announcements at the event, but you never truly know until Tim Cook wraps things up. After all, we did see the Apple Vision Pro make its first appearance at the last WWDC.
In any case, here's what to expect from Apple's WWDC 2024 keynote:
When is WWDC 2024?
WWDC 2024 starts on June 10 and runs through June 14. There will be a variety of events throughout the week, but the bulk of the attention will be on Apple's keynote which is set for 1PM ET on June 10. You'll be able to watch the keynote on apple.com, the Apple Developer app, the Apple TV app and Apple's YouTube channel.
The keynote is where Apple tends to reveal many of the key features for the next major versions of its main operating systems: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and most likely visionOS. Apple has also used the WWDC keynote to unveil new hardware over the years, though we expect that to be less of a concern this time around.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AI
Even though Apple has largely shied away from uttering "AI" too often during its events, there's no getting away from the big tech buzzword of the last two years. Generative AI is quickly seeping into more aspects of our lives and Apple seems primed to grab a piece of that pie.
It's believed that Apple doesn't yet have its own AI chatbot that's ready for primetime. While it continues to beaver away on that, the company has reportedly reached a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iOS 18. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is still interested in reaching an agreement with Google to offer that company's Gemini AI assistant on iPhones too, but that may not happen until further down the line.
Siri, meanwhile, is expected to get an upgrade across compatible devices using Apple’s own large language models. Reports also suggest that you'll be able to use the voice assistant to carry out many more specific functions in certain apps (like opening documents and sending emails), but it's believed that Apple won't roll out this Siri upgrade until early 2025.
Apple's approach to generative AI in both iOS 18 and macOS 15 is said to be a practical one that's based on helping regular folk in their everyday lives rather than letting them, say, quickly generate long reams of text they can sell as ebooks for a quick buck. Instead, you're more likely to see GAI features like suggested email and message replies, TL;DR text summaries, voice memo transcriptions (finally!) and improved photo touchup tools in core apps.
Apple is expected to handle as much of the AI processing on-device as it can, with the remainder being sent to data centers. That raises questions about how Apple will ensure user privacy, one of the company's core tenets. It will have to spell out how it's keeping user information secure as it moves between the device and a data center.
Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget
iOS 18 / iPadOS 18
As ever, new features are coming to a swathe of iOS and iPadOS apps. Arguably the most notable is the expected introduction of RCS to Messages.
GMSA's RCS, or Rich Communications Service, is a more advanced messaging protocol than the three-decade-old SMS. RCS is more secure than old-school SMS, since it offers end-to-end encryption. It allows for improved media sharing, with high-resolution images, video and audio clips. RCS allows for proper group chats and it supports Wi-Fi messaging too.
And yet for years, Apple refused to bring RCS to its platform — something Google had long been needling it to do — to keep iMessage more of a walled garden. Of course, iMessage itself has many of the same features as RCS. At one point, Apple CEO Tim Cook's response to someone who asked for improved Android texting compatibility so they could share videos with their mother was to "buy your mom an iPhone."
Apple eventually relented on its RCS stance last year, possibly to ensure it complies with strict EU regulations. The company said it would enable RCS support in 2024, so it makes sense that this feature would debut in iOS 18. That means messaging between iOS and Android should be much better in the near future (even if texts from Android devices will still appear as green bubbles on an iPhone). Meanwhile, Google just started allowing Android users to edit RCS messages within a 15-minute window of sending them.
Gurman also noted that Apple is likely to support custom emoji generation based on what you're writing in text messages. It seems that you'll also be able to change the colors of app icons on your home screen and no longer have to keep apps locked to a rigid grid system.
Apple Music may gain an auto-generated playlist feature, following an OpenAI-powered tool that Spotify rolled out in 2023. Custom routes and topographic maps (which debuted on Apple Watch last year) are said to be on the way to Apple Maps. In addition, Apple is rumored to be adding a voice-recording tool to Notes, which would dovetail nicely with the expected transcription function, as well as the option to display mathematical notation.
Other core apps are reportedly in line for some changes, such as generative AI functions in productivity apps like Keynote and Pages. Others like Mail, Fitness and Health are also expected to get new features, but the details haven't been leaked as yet.
Calculator
This long-expected update deserves its own section. That's right, the Calculator app is said to be getting a major overhaul on iPhone and Mac. Snarkiness aside, the revamp actually sounds like it'll be useful, with Notes app integration, improved unit conversions and a sidebar listing recent activity. The app is also said to be coming to iPadOS.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
macOS 15
Let's take a wild guess out of the gate here and declare that Apple will name the next version of macOS after a notable location in California. In all seriousness, that would be the least shocking thing Apple could possibly do on the keynote stage.
Many of the iOS app updates are expected to be replicated in macOS 15, such as the Apple Music, Notes and productivity changes. Rumors suggest that Apple is reorganizing the System Settings app based on importance and priority of the various categories, so the General tab is likely to be bumped up while Sound and Notifications are expected to drop down the list.
Elsewhere, Siri's menu bar icon may get a new look with a flat monochrome design expected to supplant the current colorful version. There may be some welcome accessibility upgrades too, such as a Shortcuts option that allows users to trigger a certain setting or action using a custom spoken phrase.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Apple hardware
Last year's WWDC was a hardware bonanza, with Apple finally announcing the Vision Pro along with the 15-inch MacBook Air and the M2 Ultra-powered Mac Pro and Mac Studio. We're not expecting much from Apple on the hardware front this time around, though.
The company just updated its iPad lineup and it's likely a little too early for any new laptops given the MacBook Pro and iMac updates in October and MacBook Air refreshes in March. Of course, iPhones will remain under wraps until September, as will the next Apple Watches. However, Apple may take the opportunity to slot its M3 or even M4 chips into its other desktop systems, many of which remain mired in the M2 generation.
We could see some refreshed peripherals and other devices too. There's always the possibility that Apple will unveil an (official) version of the AirPods Max with a USB-C charging port.
Back in January 2023, Gurman reported that a new Apple TV box would arrive in the first half of 2024. There's still just enough time for that to happen. There's a possibility that Apple may add a camera to the Apple TV as well. In that case, there'd be no need to use an iPhone or iPad for FaceTime chats on the biggest screen in your home.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Apple Vision Pro
One thing we are expecting on the hardware side is for Apple to reveal where the Vision Pro is going next. Until now, the headset has only been available in the US. That's probably going to change in the coming weeks and months. Multiple reports have suggested that the next phase of the rollout will include Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the UK. However, there hasn't been much in terms of visionOS 2 leaks so far, so it's unclear what kind of updates the mixed reality operating system will get.
Everything else
The rumor mill has been quiet about watchOS updates too. There will surely be some notable changes to Apple's wearable operating system, but we could be in for a relatively minor iteration of watchOS after last year's massive overhaul.
It's rare that tvOS gets much love during an Apple keynote, but it's bound to get an update that we'll learn about at some point during WWDC. You might have to wait until the Platforms State of the Union event at 4PM ET for the scoop. The same goes for CarPlay and HomePod.
Bear in mind, none of this is certain until the likes of Cook, Craig Federighi et al hit the WWDC keynote stage and start discussing what's next for Apple's products and services. But based on the reporting of several Apple-focused journalists with a strong track record of getting things right, we do expect to hear about many of the above updates and announcements.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-wwdc-2024-what-to-expect-including-ios-18-ai-and-more-195802569.html?src=rss
Spotify says it has quietly begun offering refunds for its soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing. The company told Engadget on Thursday that, as of last Friday, customers with proof of purchase (like an emailed invoice) can contact customer service and get their money back for the vehicle streaming device.
Spotify has taken some heat for its announcement last week that it will brick every Car Thing device on December 9, 2024. The company described its decision as “part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings” (read: cut costs) and that it lets Spotify “focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.”
TechCrunchreports that Gen Z users on TikTok have expressed their frustration in videos, while others have complained directed toward Spotify in DMs on X (Twitter) and directly through customer support. Some users claimed Spotify’s customer service agents only offered several months of free Premium access, while others were told nobody was receiving refunds. It isn’t clear if any of them contacted them after last Friday when it shifted gears on refunds.
Others went much further. Billboard first reported on a class-action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 28. The suit accuses Spotify of misleading Car Thing customers by selling a $90 product that would soon be obsolete without offering refunds, which sounds like a fair enough point.
It’s worth noting that, according to Spotify, it began offering the refunds last week, while the lawsuit was only filed on Tuesday. If the company’s statement about refunds starting on May 24 is accurate, the refunds aren’t a direct response to the legal action. (Although it’s possible the company began offering them in anticipation of lawsuits.)
Regardless, anyone reaching out to customer service with a valid receipt should be offered a refund. If you have tried since then and have been denied, we recommend you contact them again.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-now-says-it-will-refund-car-thing-purchases-193001487.html?src=rss
OpenAI is bringing ChatGPT to college campuses across the country. On Thursday, the company announced ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT built specifically for students, academics, faculty. “ChatGPT Edu is designed for schools that want to deploy AI more broadly to students and their campus communities,” the company said in a blog post.
ChatGPT Edu includes access to GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest large language model that the company revealed earlier this month. OpenAI claims that the model is much better than its previous versions at interpreting text, coding, and mathematics, analyzing data sets, and being able to access the web. ChatGPT Edu will also have significantly higher message limits than the free version of ChatGPT and allow universities to build custom versions of ChatGPT trained on their own data — confusingly called GPTs — and share them within university workspaces. OpenAI claims that conversations and data from ChatGPT Edu won’t be used to train OpenAI’s models.
Although the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022 initially raised concerns about academic integrity and potential misuse in educational environments, universities have increasingly been experimenting with using generative AI for both teaching as well as research. OpenAI said that it built ChatGPT Edu after it saw Wharton, Arizona State University and Columbia among others using ChatGPT Enterprise.
MBA undergrads at Wharton, for instance, completed their final reflection assignments by training a GPT trained on course materials have having discussions with the chatbot, while Arizona State University is experimenting with its own GPTs that engage German conversations with students learning the language.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-has-a-has-a-new-version-of-chatgpt-just-for-universities-191350708.html?src=rss
Students gather for a rally in support of a protest encampment on campus in support of Palestinians, despite a 2pm deadline issued by university officials to disband or face suspension, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs/ File Photo
The web version of Threads just got a whole lot more usable. Meta is rolling out the new Tweetdeck-like column view to all users, after it started testing the feature earlier this month.
The new look, which some Threads users have nicknamed “ThreadsDeck,” allows you to pin up to 100 different feeds to the Threads home page. Each column can also be set to auto-update so you can follow new posts as they come in.
While Tweetdeck fans will appreciate the familiarity, the new view also addresses some of the headaches of Threads’ “for you” algorithm. While the new column layout won’t let you eliminate the “for you” feed entirely, you can more easily hide it in the column view and put your “following” feed and any others side-by-side. It also vastly increases the number of posts you can view at any one time, making it a much more practical view for finding real-time information.
Threads’ “for you” feed has been a long-running source of complaints from many users, who question why the feed often seems to surface days-old posts and random stories from unconnected strangers instead of more timely updates. Meta’s controversial decision to automatically limit “political” content in its recommendations is also often criticized.
At the same time, the company does seem to recognize that users want to be able to find news and other timely updates. Threads has also recently gotten a “recent” filter for search results, and has a limited version of “trending topics.” Threads’ column view also makes both of these features more visible since you can set dedicated columns for specific search topics to track at-a-glance.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-tweetdeck-clone-for-threads-is-finally-here-191132892.html?src=rss
The hits keep on coming with NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope. According to the space agency, the JWST just found the most distant known galaxy ever. The catchily-named JADES-GS-z14-0 galaxy is said to have formed just 290 million years after the big bang, but it features some unique properties that are at odds with that notion.
The galaxy is incredibly large, at 1,600 light years across. It’s also very bright and features an unusual amount of starlight, given how soon it formed after the big bang. This has led researchers Stefano Carniani and Kevin Hainline to ask “how can nature make such a bright, massive, and large galaxy in less than 300 million years?” In cosmic time, that’s barely a blip.
The wavelengths of light emitted from JADES-GS-z14-0, as spotted by the JWST’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), indicate the presence of strong ionized gas emissions, likely from an abundance of hydrogen and oxygen. This is also weird, as oxygen is not typically present early in the life of a galaxy. This suggests that “multiple generations of very massive stars had already lived their lives before we observed the galaxy.”
NASA
As always with distant space stuff, we are actually looking at the past, due to the speed of light, so that means that the galaxy spawned those multiple generations of massive stars in under 290 million years. Stars “only” take around ten million years to form, but can take up to 20 billion years to die. However, ultra-massive stars typically have decreased lifespans. So this finding doesn’t exactly rewrite our understanding of the cosmos, but does certainly call into question the nature of star formation in the early life of the universe.
“All of these observations, together, tell us that JADES-GS-z14-0 is not like the types of galaxies that have been predicted by theoretical models and computer simulations to exist in the very early universe,” the researchers told NASA. “It is likely that astronomers will find many such luminous galaxies, possibly at even earlier times, over the next decade with Webb.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-has-found-the-most-distant-galaxy-ever-observed-185833121.html?src=rss
I remember being a kid and seeing my grandmother without her dentures for the first time. It was a harrowing experience. Now my dad has dentures so, genetically speaking, I’m several decades out from needing some myself. However, it’s possible that modern medicine will solve the issue of lost teeth by then, thanks to a new drug that's about to enter human trials.
The medicine quite literally regrows teeth and was developed by a team of Japanese researchers, as reported by New Atlas. The research has been led by Katsu Takahashi, head of dentistry and oral surgery at Kitano Hospital. The intravenous drug deactivates the uterine sensitization-associated gene-1 (USAG-1) protein that suppresses tooth growth. Blocking USAG-1 from interacting with other proteins triggers bone growth and, voila, you got yourself some brand-new chompers. Pretty cool, right?
Human trials start in September, but the drug has been highly successful when treating ferrets and mice and did its job with no serious side effects. Of course, the usual caveat applies. Humans are not mice or ferrets, though researchers seem confident that it’ll work on homo sapiens. This is due to a 97 percent similarity in how the USAG-1 protein works when comparing humans to other species.
September’s clinical trial will include adults who are missing at least one molar but there’s a secondary trial coming aimed at children aged two to seven. The kids in the second trial will all be missing at least four teeth due to congenital tooth deficiency. Finally, a third trial will focus on older adults who are missing “one to five permanent teeth due to environmental factors.”
Takahashi and his fellow researchers are so optimistic about this drug that they predict the medicine will be available for everyday consumers by 2030. So in six years we can throw our toothbrushes away and eat candy bars all day and all night without a care in the world (don’t actually do that.)
While this is the first drug that can fully regrow missing teeth, the science behind it builds on top of years of related research. Takahashi, after all, has been working on this since 2005. Recent advancements in the field include regenerative tooth fillings to repair diseased teeth and stem cell technology to regrow the dental tissue of children.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-worlds-first-tooth-regrowing-drug-has-been-approved-for-human-trials-174423381.html?src=rss
Instagram launched Notes in December 2022 as a way for people to share statuses (not so dissimilar to Facebook) on the platform. Now, the Meta-owned app is taking inspiration from its sister site for more features, with the addition of Note Prompts.
Instagram first experimented with Note Prompts earlier this year, and the feature allows users to share questions such as "What should I eat?" or "Who is going to be in X city this weekend?" Friends can then respond with tips, suggestions and random thoughts on the subject. It feels very Facebook circa 2012, as does another new feature, Mentions, in which users can tag a friend directly in their Notes. The example Instagram gives, "Hanging with @user later," would be right out of the early 2010s with just adding "Text! :)" Instagram also announced Note Likes, which works similarly to how likes function everywhere else on Instagram — all users need to do is double tap a note or click the heart.
Notes have only emerged on Instagram in the past couple of years. They mirror stories in many ways, lasting only 24 hours and with controls as to who can see them (such as just mutual followers). Notes are visible in a user's inbox and on profiles.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-makes-its-status-update-feature-more-interactive-160057778.html?src=rss
Android’s RCS message capabilities are inching closer to iMessage’s. Google said today that you can now edit RCS messages, bringing parity with the iMessage editing feature Apple added two years ago.
The new editing feature gives you 15 minutes (the same as iMessage) to edit a message in the Google Messages app. Hold down on the message to bring up a text box to fix your typos or add extra clarity.
RCS messages will soon whittle down the divide between green and blue bubbles on iOS. Apple said it would support RCS in the Messages app starting in 2024, giving iPhone owners typing indicators, read receipts and high-resolution media sharing when chatting with their Android phone-toting friends. Although Apple hasn’t provided a specific timeline, the assumption is RCS will arrive in iOS 18, which we’ll learn about in its June 10 WWDC keynote ahead of a fall launch.
Google had a few other new features to roll out. Android users with a Chromebook or Android tablet will soon get Instant Hotspot, similar to another feature Apple rolled out years ago (way back in 2014 in iOS 8 and macOS Yosemite). “Coming soon, with instant hotspot, you’ll be able to connect your Android tablet or Chromebook to your phone’s hotspot with one tap — without needing to go through the extra step of typing in your password,” Google product director Jan Jedrzejowicz wrote in the company’s blog post announcing the new features.
Along similar lines, Google Meet will soon let you quickly move devices mid-call. You can tap the Cast icon in the app to switch between an Android phone, tablet or web browser, which is handy when you want to switch locations during a video chat.
Google
Android is also getting easier smart home controls. A new Google Home Favorites widget gives you access to room temperatures or lighting controls with one tap. This seems like a more intuitive placement than the lock screen shortcut for smart home controls that Google introduced in Android 13. You can sign up for a public preview to try the widget.
In addition, Wear OS will get a Google Home Favorites tile and complication for smart-home control from your wrist.
Google is also adding new Emoji Kitchen combinations. If you aren’t familiar with it, the clever feature lets you blend two emoji in Gboard to send franken-moji stickers to friends. The company didn’t provide a complete list of new options, but it said a disco ball and headphones combo was one example.
Other Android updates include using PayPal on Google Wallet from Wear OS watches. Android’s digital car keys are now available with some Mini models and will soon be available for “select Mercedes-Benz and Polestar vehicles.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-now-edit-rcs-chats-in-android-messages-160010553.html?src=rss
Google promo image of a person in a straw hat smiling while holding an Android phone. Overlaid bubbles show editing messages ("See you at the shoe!" becomes "See you at the show!") and new emoji combinations (a disco ball and headphones transform into a small disco ball between two headphones).
The prices of streaming services have been rising across the board over the last few years. One way to keep the costs down is by opting for a bundle. But there are other deals to be found, such as one that can save you $40 on an annual Peacock Premium plan ahead of a planned price hike. A year of the ad-supported tier can be yours for just $20 when you sign up using the code STREAMTHEDEAL. This deal is only available to folks in the US who aren't already Peacock Premium subscribers. You have until June 30 to take advantage of it.
While it might not get the same attention as the likes of Netflix or Disney+, Peacock is a solid streaming service with some notable original shows, such as Poker Face, Mrs. Davis, Ted and We Are Lady Parts. Fans of back-stabbing reality shows should enjoy The Traitors too.
What makes Peacock one of the best streaming services for many though is its sports offerings. Premier League soccer has been a staple of the platform since its debut and now many games stream there exclusively. If you take up this deal, your year of access will cover the entire 2024-25 season. Peacock is also home to major WWE events, US Open tennis and some NFL games as well.
There's also the small matter of the Olympic Games. Peacock will stream all of this summer's Olympic action live from Paris, including the opening and closing ceremonies and every medal event. Some events will be exclusive to Peacock. The platform is also introducing some new multiview features this time around to help you stay on top of things as much as possible.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given Amazon permission to fly its delivery drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). With that hurdle cleared, the company claims it can fly farther and expand drone service, providing customers faster delivery and a larger selection of items, Amazon announced in a blog post.
Until now, the FAA has only allowed Amazon to fly drones as far as someone could see them from the ground. That way, spotters or pilots could ensure that drones weren't interfering with aircraft. However, the constraint seriously limited how far the drones could travel.
To move beyond that, Amazon said it spent years developing "onboard detect-and-avoid technology." It submitted engineering information to the FAA including operation, maintenance and performance details. Flight tests were then conducted in the presence of FAA inspectors around airplanes, helicopters and a hot air balloon to "demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each one of them," Amazon said.
With BVLOS approval in hand, the company plans to expand its delivery area around its drone facility at College Station, Texas. Later in 2024, drone deliveries will be integrated into its broader delivery network.
Last month, Amazon announced that it was halting drone deliveries at one of its first test sites in Lockeford, California, without providing a specific reason. At the same time, it said it would launch drone deliveries in the West Valley, Phoenix metro area.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-has-permission-to-fly-its-drones-over-longer-distances-133602573.html?src=rss
Folks who have been on the fence about buying a Sonos soundbar or speaker for the first time or those who want to expand their existing home audio setup may be pleased to learn that the company is running a sale. (Its new Ace headphones aren’t included, unfortunately.) You can save up to 25 percent on many Sonos products until June 16. The Era 300 speaker, for instance, has dropped from $449 to $359. That’s 90 bucks off, and the deal is also being matched at Amazon.
The Era 300 is the first Sonos speaker with spatial audio support. While we had some reservations about just how well the spatial audio actually works, in general we reckon the Era 300 delivers excellent sound. We gave it a score of 80 in our review, in part because it's expensive, but the current deal certainly offsets that. The unusual appearance and lack of Google Assistant support were also negatives in our book.
On the plus side, though, the Era 300 is very easy to set up and the Trueplay tuning system no longer requires you to walk around the room while waving an iPhone (though the latter might give you better results). The speaker works with pretty much any music streaming service, while Bluetooth and line-in options are very welcome.
You can also find good deals on some of the best soundbars. The second-gen Sonos Beam is $399 ($100 off) and it checks almost all the boxes — it delivers good audio for its size and has Dolby Atmos support. The main negative is that it has just one HDMI port. On the high end of the price spectrum, the Arc is $180 off and down to $719. Most of these Sonos deals are being matched at Amazon as well.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-latest-sonos-sale-slices-90-off-the-flagship-era-300-133043027.html?src=rss
So what’s on the agenda? The company promises the stream will spotlight 14 games coming to the PS5 and PS VR2. Sony hasn’t announced many first-party titles for the months and years ahead, so this should finally give us a glimpse into the future of both the PS5 and its VR headset accessory. Wait, 14 games in 30 minutes? You had better not take a break to make popcorn.
Sony remains mum as to which 14 games will get some TLC during the stream, but we have some likely guesses. It’s been nearly three years since the teaser trailer for Insomniac’s Wolverine game dropped, and the near-indestructible mutant has been all over the pop culture landscape lately. It’s highly likely we’ll get an actual gameplay trailer and maybe, just maybe, a release date.
Rumors have suggested that the long-awaited Silent Hill 2 remake will get another trailer, but Konami is holding its own event immediately following State of Play. Konami’s event is called Silent Hill Transmission, so we’re definitely getting something about the neglected horror franchise. We just don’t know if it’ll be at 6PM ET or sometime after 7PM ET.
Konami
It’d be really nice if Sony finally announces Ghost of Tsushima 2, particularly after the release of that stellar PC port of the original game. Haven's Fairgame$ and Firewalk's Concord are likely to show up. Also, Bungie is getting ready to release a Destiny 2 expansion called The Final Shape. That’ll likely get a shoutout. Reports suggest a new Astro game from Team Asobi is currently in development.
Now onto hopes. We know Guerilla is working on more games in the Horizon universe, so it’d be nice to get some information about that. Sony owns a bunch of studios and they all have to be working on something. Just one surprise from Naughty Dog or Media Molecule could set the internet on fire. In any event, we don’t have that long to wait.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/how-to-watch-sonys-playstation-state-of-play-event-this-evening-130041039.html?src=rss
GeForce Now subscribers will be able to stream and play World of Warcraft (WoW) through the service if they want to. NVIDIA's cloud gaming service is adding World of Warcraft Classic, Dragonflight and even Cataclysm Classic, which launched just a few days ago, to its library of games. WoW and its extensions will be available starting this week, along with a bunch of other titles such as the newly released Rogue Prince of Persia. In June, NVIDIA is also adding Resident Evil Village and Street Fighter 6, among other games, to the service.
The service gives members a way to access games across platforms, including Android and iOS devices, PCs and Macs. It's worth noting that WoW does not support controllers for consoles, and players typically need a keyboard and a mouse to be as accurate and as fast as possible, so it may not be easy to play on certain devices. The game's addition to GeForce Now means subscribers can play it on Chromebooks, though, eliminating the need for players to jump through hoops just to be able to install the game on their computers.
In addition to announcing new titles for GeForce Now, NVIDIA also revealed that the service will release a new members reward for Elder Scrolls Online as part of the game's 10th year anniversary celebrations. Subscribers have to opt into the service's rewards program in order to claim the new in-game mount for free.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/world-of-warcraft-is-coming-to-geforce-now-130032850.html?src=rss
While Minecraft was officially released in 2011, it was first introduced to the public back in 2009. This year, Minecraft is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and as part of the festivities surrounding that milestone, Netflix and Mojang Studios have announced that they're making an animated series based on the iconic sandbox game. It's a computer graphic-animated show that's being developed by Canadian studio WildBrain, which was also behind the animated Netflix shows Carmen Sandiego and Sonic Prime.
The companies said the series will feature an original story based on new characters that show "the world of Minecraft in a new light." We'll most likely find out what that means exactly before the series launches when they start releasing previews and trailers. The video Netflix and Mojang have published only announces their collaboration — we'll just have to wait for more information on whether the show will still include characters we all know from the game, like Steve, creepers and zombies, or if it will truly only feature characters we've never seen before. If the long-delayed Minecraft movie ever gets made, we'll still see Steve in an adaptation anyway. Earlier this year, Deadlinereported that Jack Black is set to star as the game's blocky protagonist alongside Jason Momoa.
Over the past couple of weeks, Minecraft has also released special items to celebrate its 15th anniversary, including free party add-ons, a free map, a cape and wallpapers. You can see all of Mojang's anniversary items and announcements on the Minecraft website.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflix-is-developing-a-minecraft-animated-series-130023691.html?src=rss
While the cinema is still the best way to experience movies, it’s admittedly hard (and expensive!) to corral kids for a theater trip. And don’t even bring up babysitting costs. These days, it’s far easier to turn your house into the perfect entertainment cocoon, with all of your required creature comforts. Here are a few suggestions to help dads get their kids into Across the Spider-Verse (or perhaps catch up on all the Marvel and Star Wars shows they may have missed).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-home-entertainment-gift-ideas-for-dad-134509519.html?src=rss
Last week, Sony published a seemingly innocuous round of interviews that centered the company’s nebulous “creative entertainment vision”. Neil Druckmann, head of the Sony-owned game studio Naughty Dog, was one of those — but his interview wasn’t quite what it seemed.
Druckmann, who headed the team behind The Last of Us series, was apparently wildly misquoted by his own employers. A few days after the interviews were published, he took to X and said, “This is not quite what I said.” He even posted a section of the original interview transcript, which was hugely different.
Sony has since pulled the interview and issued an apology on the old page, saying the article had significant errors and inaccuracies, encompassing “animation, writing, technology, AI and future projects.” So, if all that was inaccurate, what was accurate?
Japan’s hit virtual pet, Punirunes, comes to the US this summer. A play on puni-puni, which means ‘squishy’ in Japanese, it’s a slightly different kind of digital pet. There’s a doughy button at the center of the device that simulates physical contact with your Punirunes. When you pet it, your finger even appears on the device’s screen. Punirunes makes its US debut in August for $40.
Amazon is permanently offering free Grubhub+ restaurant delivery as part of its Prime subscription. If you pay $139 per year for a Prime subscription and are up for spending more to eat, you’ll pay no fee for eligible GrubHub orders over $12. You’ll also see lower service fees, 5 percent credit back on pickup orders and, apparently, exclusive offers. Unlimited grocery delivery from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh still costs an additional $10 per month.
The attacks have knocked the site offline a few times.
If you couldn’t access the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine over the past few days, it’s because the website has been under attack. The nonprofit organization has announced it’s in its “third day of warding off an intermittent DDoS cyber-attack.”
The Internet Archive has yet to identify the source of the attacks, but it did talk about how libraries and similar institutions are being targeted more frequently these days. One institution it mentioned was the British Library, whose online information system was held hostage for ransom by a hacker group last year.
The headset is slated to gain PC support this year.
After teasing PC compatibility earlier this year, Sony has apparently created a PC adapter for the PS VR2, according to a Korean filing unearthed by VR and mixed-reality enthusiast Brad Lynch. There are no details on how the adapter works, what it looks like or how much it will cost, but it lends credence to previous evidence that the headset would have a wired PC connection. The company will be hoping that PC support will drive sales of its headset, which hasn’t exactly set the world alight.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-sony-apologizes-for-fabricated-interview-with-last-of-us-studio-head-111549333.html?src=rss
Neil Druckmann arrives at a For Your Consideration red carpet for "The Last Of Us" on Friday, April 28, 2023, at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Amazon Prime Day 2024 is coming soon, so it’s a good time to start thinking about the things you’ll want to look for once the deal wave hits. Everything from gadgets to clothes to household necessities will be on sale during the event, and if you’re a Prime member, you’ll have access to all of the Amazon Prime Day deals. Engadget will be surfacing all of the best tech deals we can find – both on Amazon and elsewhere – but there are some important things to know ahead of time so you can get exactly what you want out of this year’s Prime Day.
When is Amazon Prime Day?
We do not have official dates for Prime Day 2024 yet, but we do know it’ll be back sometime in July. The shopping event focuses on exclusive deals for Prime members, which means you’ll have to be a Prime subscriber on Prime Day to take advantage of most of the savings. Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial to new Prime subscribers, so you can start your free trial closer to July and participate in the event.
If you don’t pay for Prime and have no intention of doing so, you should still check out Amazon on Prime Day for sales that are available to all shoppers — there are always a few of them. Plus, it’s very likely that other retailers like Walmart and Target will have their own competing Prime Day sales during that time frame, too.
Amazon Prime Day deals
Amazon Prime Day typically lasts two days, but for the past few years, the company has started pushing out deals well before the event actually kicks off. We anticipate the same happening this year, with early Prime Day deals kicking off possibly as soon as Amazon officially announces the dates of Prime Day 2024.
Be they early Prime Day deals or day-of sales, Amazon gadgets are almost guaranteed to be on sale for the event. You can safely bet on things like Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and Fire TV devices to be at record-low prices for Prime Day, so if you’ve had your eye on one of those items, it’s worth waiting for those deals to drop. Prime Day is only matched by Black Friday in its discounts, so while that means you will likely have another chance to get that smart speaker for dirt cheap, it probably won’t be until the holiday shopping season.
Amazon gadgets will not be the only items discounted on Prime Day. You’ll find clothes, shoes, household items, appliances, accessories and more on sale, but here at Engadget, we’ll naturally be focusing on electronics. We expect this year’s Prime Day to be like last year’s, in that it will bring big discounts on headphones, earbuds, gaming accessories, SSDs and microSD cards, robot vacuums and more.
Engadget will be covering Amazon Prime Day in its entirety, so if you have a lot of tech on your to-buy list, be sure to check back here on Prime Day for the best tech sales we could find. We’ll be sure to include gadgets from across the board – from headphones to robot vacuums to gaming gear – plus the best “anti-Prime Day” deals you can find from other retailers. You can also follow the @EngadgetDeals Twitter account and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter to stay up to date on the latest discounts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-day-2024-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-upcoming-sale-in-july-110027418.html?src=rss
Instagram is expanding two of its safety features in an effort to ramp up its bullying protections for teens. The company is changing how limiting and restricting work in its app to give teens ways to deal with potential bullies that it claims are less likely to lead to further retaliation.
With the changes, Instagram users will have the ability to “limit” their post interactions to “close friends” only. That means that users will only see comments, direct messages, tags and mentions from people on their close friends list. Other followers will still be able to interact with their posts, but those comments and messages won’t be visible to others.
The company previously introduced comment limiting as a creator-focused anti-bullying feature in 2021 with the goal of preventing the kind of sudden flood of harassment experienced by several UK football players. The latest changes, according to Instagram, are geared more toward teens who are dealing with bullies, but may be hesitant to use the app’s block feature due to fears of escalating potential conflicts,
For cases when people may be dealing with one particular bully, Instagram is making similar changes to its “restrict” feature. Users will be able to prevent restricted individuals from tagging or mentioning them. Comments from those on the restricted list will also be automatically hidden from others.
The updates comes as Meta is facing scrutiny over its handling of teen safety and other issues. The company was sued by dozens of states last year for allegedly failing to protect its youngest users from harmful aspects of its service.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/instagram-is-expanding-its-anti-bullying-features-for-teens-100037418.html?src=rss
E-Ink tablets have intrigued me ever since they became available because I’m a longtime lover of pen and paper. I’ve had hundreds of paper notebooks over the years, serving as safe places for me to dump story ideas, to-do lists, meeting notes and everything in between. But at a certain point, I turned away from physical notebooks because it became easier to save all of those things digitally in various apps that were always available to me on my phone. E-Ink tablets seem to provide the best of both worlds: the tactile satisfaction of physical notebooks with many of the conveniences found in digital tools. These devices have come a long way in the past few years, and we’re just starting to see more color E-Ink tablets become more widely available. I tested out a number of different E Ink tablets to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best tablets using E Ink screens available today.
Are E Ink tablets worth it?
An E Ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an e paper display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that kind of functionality on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall.
The final note is key here. Most E Ink tablets don’t run on the same operating systems as regular tablets, so you’re automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and Facebook, E Ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E Ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of color and lower quality than the panels you’ll find on even the cheapest iPad.
Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because it’s much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations. An e-reader is also worth considering if this is the case for you, but just know that most standard e-readers do not accept stylus input. If you like to make notes in the margins of books, underline and mark up PDFs and the like, an e-reader won’t cut it.
What to look for in an E Ink tablet
Latency
I discovered four main things that can really make or break your experience with an E Ink tablet during my testing; first is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to “paper,” so to speak?) and the stylus’ latency. Most had little to no latency, but there were some that were worse than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E Ink tablet comes with a stylus.
Reading
The second thing to consider is the reading experience. How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? While you can find E Ink tablets in all different sizes, most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading).
The supported file types will also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that you’ll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E Ink tablet. And with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, it’s not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device. Unless the tablet supports reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle or the Kobo app, you’ll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others.
Search functionality
Third, most E Ink tablets have some search features, but they can vary widely between models. You’ll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed that Amazon’s and Kobo’s E Ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save on which pages you took notes, made highlights and more. Searching is less standardized on E Ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text.
Sharing and connectivity
The final factor to consider is sharing and connectivity. Yes, we established that E Ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, but most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles aren’t created in a vacuum. You’ll likely want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E Ink tablets I tried were Wi-Fi devices, and some supported cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere. None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents you’ll interact with on your E Ink tablet after the tablet portion is done.
Other E Ink tablets we've tested
Lenovo Smart Paper
Lenovo made a solid E Ink tablet in the Smart Paper, but it's too pricey and too married to the company's companion cloud service to warrant a spot on our top picks list. The hardware is great, but the software isn't as flexible as those of competitors like the reMarkable 2. It has good Google Drive integration, but you must pair it with Lenovo's cloud service to really get the most use out of it — and in the UK, the service costs £9 per month for three months, which is quite expensive.
Onyx Boox Tab Ultra
The Boox Tab Ultra has a lot of the same features we like in the Note Air 2 Plus, but it’s designed to be a true, all-purpose tablet with an E Ink screen. Running Android 11 and compatible with a magnetic keyboard case, you can use it like a standard 2-in-1 laptop, albeit a low-powered one. You can browse the web, check email and even watch YouTube videos on this thing — but that doesn’t mean you should. A standard 2-in-1 laptop with a more responsive screen and better overall performance would be a better fit for most people who even have the slightest desire to have an all-in-one device. Like the rest of Onyx’s devices, the Tab Ultra is specifically for those who put reading and eye comfort above all else.
TCL NXTPAPER 14 Pro
We got to spend some time with TCL’s latest E Ink-like tablet at CES, the NXTPAPER 14 Pro. Using the company’s NXTPAPER 3.0 technology, the device isn’t precisely an E Ink tablet but one that attempts to strike a balance between the displays of ereaders and standard slabs. It focuses on eye comfort by filtering out up to 61 percent of blue light, using a Circularly Polarized Light (CPL) screen and the like. TCL has not revealed pricing for the NXTPAPER 14 Pro, but it did confirm it would arrive in the US in early 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-e-ink-tablet-130037939.html?src=rss
Amazon is permanently offering free restaurant delivery via Grubhub+ as part of its Prime subscription, the company announced. If you live in the US and pay $139 per year for a Prime subscription, you'll pay no fee for eligible GrubHub orders over $12. You'll also see lower service fees, five percent credit back on pickup orders and exclusive offers.
That works out to a value of $120 per year, according to Amazon. The retail giant had previously offered Prime clients a free one-year subscription to GrubHub+, but after that year was up, you had to pay $129 per year on top of your Prime subscription. Now, it appears to be a permanent Prime inclusion.
Amazon's US customers can access GrubHub on Amazon.com and in the Amazon Shopping app with an "identical" ordering experience and prices to Grubhub.com or Grubhub's app, according to Amazon. To activate the offer, go to Amazon.com/grubhub. On top of the free delivery, Prime members can get $5 off GrubHub orders of $25 or more through June 2nd.
Though widely used, restaurant delivery services have been controversial. Both restaurants and customers complain about high delivery fees and drivers often receive low pay while shouldering heavy workloads. Most fees don't go to the driver, so many customers feel the need to add a tip onto the already high fees. In Europe, a deal was recently struck to reclassify millions of food delivery app workers as employees.
Amazon's Prime membership includes other perks like Prime Video and free same-day delivery. However, it recently added an additional $3 per month fee to get Prime Video without ads (except for sporting events). Meanwhile, unlimited grocery delivery from Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh costs an additional $10 per month.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-customers-in-the-us-now-get-free-grubhub-delivery-075319082.html?src=rss
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